LIBRARY 

OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Class 


Park  Street  Papers 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier :  A  Memoir 

Walt  Whitman 

The  Amateur  Spirit 

A  Study  of  Prose  Fiction 

The  Powers  at  Play 

The  Plated  City 

Salem   Kittredge  and  Other  Stories 

The  Broughton  House 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 


Park-Street  Papers 

By  Bliss  Perry 


Boston  and  New  York 

Houghton  Mifflin  Company 

i  90  8 


COPYRIGHT,   1908,   BY  BLISS  PERRY 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October,  igoS 


TO 

GEORGE  H.  MIFFLIN 

MAKER  OF  BEAUTIFUL  BOOKS 
WHOSE  LOYALTY  TO  HIGH  STANDARDS 

HAS  UPHELD 
AT  NO.  4  PARK  STREET 

THE  GREAT  TRADITIONS  OF  PUBLISHING 

AND  WHOSE  KINDNESS  OF  HEART 

HAS   ENDEARED   HIM 

TO  HIS  ASSOCIATES 


175781 


Preface 

THE  papers  now  gathered  into  this  volume,  in 
the  author  s  tenth  year  of  service  as  editor  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  are  concerned  with  the  maga 
zine  itself,  with  its  pleasant  home  in  Park  Street, 
and  with  some  of  the  writers  who  have  given 
distinction  to  its  pages.  Under  the  general  title 
of  "Atlantic  Prologues"  I  have  reprinted  some 
of  the  brief  Toastmaster  addresses  with  which, 
in  recent  years,  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  intro 
ducing  each  January  number  of  the  magazine. 
Although  these  informal  addresses  discuss  pri 
marily  the  surroundings  and  spirit  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  they  may  also  serve  to  suggest  some  of 
the  constant  problems  involved  in  the  art  and 
mystery  of  magazine  editing.  It  has  happened 
that  the  centenaries  of  the  births  of  several  of  the 
most  famous  early  contributors  to  the  Atlantic 
have  fallen  within  the  period  of  my  own  editor 
ship.  The  essays  upon  Hawthorne,  Longfellow, 
and  Whittier  are  studies  prompted  by  these  anni 
versary  occasions.  The  paper  upon  Thomas  Bailey 
[  vii  ] 


PREFACE 

Aldrich,  one  of  the  vivid  and  delightful  figures  in 
the  already  shadowy  line  of  Atlantic  editors,  was 
written  immediately  after  his  death  in  1907.  / 
have  also  included  in  this  volume,  which  begins 
and  ends  with  the  Atlantic,  a  paper  prepared  for 
the  Fiftieth  Anniversary  number,  in  November, 
1907,  dealing  with  F.  H.  Underwood,  whose 
share  in  founding  the  magazine  has  never  received 
quite  adequate  recognition. 

B.  P. 

CAMBRIDGE,  1908. 


Contents 

ATLANTIC  PROLOGUES 

Number  4  Park  Street    •          •          .          .          3 

Catering  for  the  Public        .          .          .  16 

The  Cheerless  Reader     ....        30 

"A  Readable  Proposition"  ...  39 

Turning  the  Old  Leaves          .          .          .52 

THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE  .         .  63 

THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW      .         .105 

THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH       .         .         .          141 

WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY     .         .         .  171 

THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  THE  EDITOR       203 


ATLANTIC   PROLOGUES 


Number  4  Park  Street 

IN  the  days  before  the  souvenir  postal  card  was 
employed  to  advertise  every  corner  of  the  globe, 
it  was  always  a  pleasure  to  receive  one  of  those 
tinted  cards  decorated  with  a  sprawling  picture 
of  some  German  town,  and  bearing  a  word  of 
hearty  German  greeting.  Gruss  am  Heidelberg! 
Or  perhaps  it  was  Jena,  Munich,  or  Nurem 
berg  that  furnished  the  cheap  little  picture  and 
friendly  word  that  wished  you  welfare  and  good 
cheer.  How  that  pleasant  custom  warmed  one's 
heart  toward  the  far-away,  thrifty  city,  and  the 
old  friends  and  old  ways !  It  refreshed  one's 
memory  better  than  any  Baedeker,  —  that  sim 
ple,  big-chested,  deep-throated  word  Gruss! 
And  it  emboldens  the  Atlantic's  Toastmaster 
to  voice  in  similar  fashion  the  salutation  of 
the  magazine  to  its  readers.  Greeting,  Cheerful 
Readers  all !  Let  it  be  a  greeting  from  Num 
ber  4  Park  Street. 

[3  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

And  what  and  where  is  Park  Street  ?  The 
Atlantic  prints  those  words  upon  its  cover,  but 
gives  no  souvenir  picture  of  the  place.  It  is  a 
short,  sloping,  prosperous  little  highway  in  what 
Rufus  Choate  called  our  "denationalized"  Bos 
ton  town.  It  begins  at  Park  Street  Church,  on 
Brimstone  Corner.  (If  you  ever  happened  to 
read,  on  a  chilly  Sunday  afternoon  in  boyhood, 
the  sermons  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  Dorr 
Griffin,  the  first  minister  of  Park  Street  Church, 
you  will  perceive  how  Brimstone  Corner  won 
its  name.)  Thence  it  climbs  leisurely  westward 
toward  the  Shaw  Memorial  and  the  State  House 
for  twenty  rods  or  so,  and  ends  at  the  George 
Ticknor  house,  on  the  corner  of  Beacon.  The 
street  is  bordered  on  the  south  by  the  Common, 
and  its  solid-built,  sunward-fronting  houses 
have  something  of  a  holiday  air,  perhaps  be 
cause  the  green,  outdoors  world  lies  just  at  their 
feet.  They  are  mostly  given  over,  in  these  lat 
ter  days,  to  trade.  The  habitual  passer  is  con 
scious  of  a  pleasant  blend  of  bookshops,  flowers, 
prints,  silverware,  Scotch  suitings,  more  books, 
more  prints,  a  club  or  two,  a  Persian  rug, —  and 
then  Park  Street  is  behind  him. 

Number  4  is    the    round-arched    doorway 

[4] 


NUMBER  4  PARK  STREET 

halfway  up  the  street,  between  the  Scotch  suit 
ings  and  the  Book  Room.  Poets  often  pass  it 
with  haughty  and  averted  face,  —  the  face  of 
the  Temporarily  Rejected,  —  and  yet  some 
times,  on  the  Atlantic's  publication  days,  they 
maybe  detected  standing  outside  the  show  win 
dows  of  the  Book  Room,  and  reading  their 
names  upon  the  fresh  cover  of  the  magazine  with 
that  bland  emotion  of  publicity  which  makes 
the  whole  world  kin.  Park  Street  is  a  more 
quiet  abiding-place  than  the  early  home  of 
the  magazine  in  the  Old  Corner  Bookstore,  or 
the  later  quarters  on  Tremont  Street.  Even 
within  the  substantial  walls  of  Number  4,  built 
as  it  was  for  a  family  mansion,  and  long  iden 
tified  with  a  widely  honored  name,  the  maga 
zine  used  to  flit  upstairs  and  down  like  a  rest 
less  guest.  Mr.  Howells's  tiny  sanctum  was  on 
the  second  floor;  and  many  a  delighted  caller 
remembers  that  third-floor  back  room,  looking 
out  upon  the  Granary  Burying-Ground,  where 
Mr,  Aldrich  was  wont  to  mitigate  the  severi 
ties  of  his  position  with  an  Irish  setter  and  a 
pipe. 

As  these  words    are   written,  the  restless 
guest  has  settled  down  for  a  while  in  a  spa- 

[5] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

cious  sunny  room  on  a  level  with  the  elm- 
tops.  Once,  at  least,  in  its  century-old  history, 
the  room  was  the  chamber  of  a  bride.  Here  are 
her  initials,  scratched  upon  the  window-pane 
with  her  ring,  while  she  was  waiting  for  the  car 
riage  to  bear  her  to  the  church,  more  than  forty 
years  ago.  Later,  it  was  the  nest  of  a  quaint 
old  pair  of  abolitionists,  who,  when  the  days  of 
their  warfare  were  accomplished,  here  lived  out 
their  lives  in  peace.  Many  pairs  of  eyes  have 
gazed  into  the  plain  marble  fireplace,  or  out 
across  the  treetops  toward  the  open  country, 
without  leaving  behind  them  any  memory  or 
sign.  The  walls  of  the  room  now  speak  of  lit 
erary  associations  merely.  They  are  hung  with 
portraits  of  former  editors,  and  with  autograph 
manuscripts  of  the  brilliant  group  of  writers 
who  gave  to  the  Atlantic  its  early  fame.  Yet 
some  human  quality  other  than  literary,  some 
touch  of  the  ardor,  the  curiosity,  the  silent  en 
durance  of  the  men  and  women  who  have  lived 
within  the  stout  brick  walls  of  Number  4,  may 
still  be  present  here,  secretly  fashioning  the  for 
tunes  of  the  Atlantic  of  to-day. 

Does  this  \urkmggenius  loci  affect  the  maga 
zine,  whether  its  conductors  will  or  no  ?  Take, 
[6] 


NUMBER  4  PARK  STREET 

for  instance,  the  view  from  these  sunny  win 
dows.  They  look  down  upon  the  mild  activities 
of  Park  Street,  to  the  left  upon  the  black  lines 
of  people  streaming  in  and  out  of  the  Subway, 
in  front  toward  the  Common  with  its  fountain 
that  never  flows  and  its  Frog  Pond  gleaming 
through  the  elms,  and  to  the  right  toward  the 
monument  to  Colonel  Robert  Gould  Shaw.  Is 
all  this  fairly  typical  of  American  life,  —  its  work 
and  play,  its  resourcefulness  and  its  careless 
ness,  its  tolerant  respect  for  the  past,  its  post 
humous  honors  gladly  paid  to  the  leaders  of 
forlorn  hopes  ?  Or  is  it  merely  a  view  of  Boston, 
something  local,  provincial ;  and  our  outlook 
from  the  Park  Street  windows,  instead  of  sum 
marizing  and  symbolizing  the  American,  the 
human  spectacle,  is  it  only  "Frogpondium  "  — 
as  the  scoffers  have  dubbed  it  —  after  all  ? 

It  is  an  interesting  question,  and  one  which 
the  readers  of  the  magazine  must  answer  for 
themselves.  Very  likely  they  can  determine, 
better  than  any  observer  stationed  at  Number 
4  Park  Street,  whether  the  Atlantic  is  provin 
cial  or  national.  Or  rather,  since  every  maga 
zine  is  necessarily  provincial  in  some  sort,  it  is 
for  them  to  say  whether  the  Atlantic's  provin- 

[7] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

cialism  is  of  that  honest  kind  which  is  rooted  in 
the  soil,  and  hence  is  truly  representative  of  and 
contributory  to  the  national  life. 

Certain  it  is,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  Atlan 
tic  has  always  been  peculiarly  identified  with 
Boston.  "  Our  Boston  magazine,"  Emerson 
called  it  somewhat  proudly,  shortly  after  the 
first  number  was  published.  "  Of  Boston,  Bos- 
tonese,"  wrote  a  New  Orleans  critic  the  other 
day,  —  "  full  of  visionary  ideals,  impressed  by 
a  certain  dogmatic  scholarship,  and  when  not 
riding  any  one  of  its  literary  hobbies,  pro 
foundly  intellectual."  Other  contemporary  no 
tices  are  not  always  so  gracious  in  their  iden 
tification  of  Bostonian  characteristics  with  the 
traits  of  the  Atlantic.  The  faithful  clipping 
bureaus  furnish  a  choice  collection  of  denunci 
atory  epithets,  aimed  partly  at  Boston,  partly  at 
Number  4  Park  Street,  whenever  the  politics 
and  philosophy  of  the  magazine  are  not  such  as 
our  journalistic  friends  approve. 

Yet  neither  the  original  founders  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  nor  any  of  its  conductors, 
have  ever  purposed  to  make  it  an  organ  of 
Bostonian  or  New  England  opinion.  Its  aim 
from  the  first  has  been  national.  It  has  striven 

[8] 


NUMBER  4  PARK  STREET 

to  give  expression  to  the  best  thought  of  the 
whole  country,  and  an  examination  of  the  long 
rows  of  its  bound  volumes  is  the  most  convinc 
ing  evidence  of  the  cosmopolitan  character  of 
its  articles.  In  the  earlier  years  of  its  existence, 
it  is  true  that  the  majority  of  the  best-known 
American  writers  were  living  within  twenty-five 
miles  of  the  Massachusetts  State  House.  These 
authors,  by  reason  of  their  unsigned,  but  easily 
recognized  contributions,  gave  the  magazine 
the  reputation  which  it  has  been  fortunate 
enough  to  maintain.  But  before  the  Civil  War 
was  over,  the  number  of  different  writers  for 
the  Atlantic  had  greatly  increased,  and  the  "  red- 
eyed  men" — as  Emerson  called  them — who 
examined  the  manuscripts  which  were  sub 
mitted  to  it  found  themselves  struggling,  like 
their  successors  to-day,  with  a  flood  of  black 
ened  paper  from  every  quarter  of  the  country. 
There  is  no  longer  any  "  literary  centre  "  in 
America.  The  publishing  centre  is  New  York, 
but  our  writers  cannot  now  be  "rounded  up"  in 
the  old  easy  fashion.  All  of  the  greater  Ameri 
can  magazines  disclaim  a  special  "sphere  of 
influence."  They  pride  themselves  upon  their 
national  quality,  and  fear  the  provincial  note. 

[9] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

The  publishers  of  many  periodicals  have  rea 
soned  that  the  readiest  way  of  acquiring  the  air 
of  cosmopolitanism  is  to  give  their  magazine 
the  imprint  of  the  commercial  capital  of  the 
country.  Witness  the  opinion  of  that  shrewd 
est  of  prospectus-makers,  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 
In  the  last  year  of  his  life  he  was  invited  by  a 
Mr.  E.  H.  N.  Patterson  to  become  the  editor 
of  a  new  magazine.  In  Mr.  Patterson's  judg 
ment,  "The  Boston  Reviewers  are,  generally, 
too  much  affected  by  local  prejudices  to  give 
impartial  criticisms;  the  Philadelphia  maga 
zines  have  become  mere  monthly  bulletins 
for  booksellers."  He  therefore  proposes  to 
found,  under  Poe's  editorship,  an  "influen 
tial  periodical"  at  Oquawka,  111.  "Oquawka," 
he  admits,  "is  comparatively  an  unimportant 
point,  but  I  think  that  such  being  the  case 
would  not  injure  at  all  the  circulation  of  the 
magazine.  .  .  .  Here  I  can  enjoy  every  mail 
advantage  that  I  could  at  St.  Louis,  being  but 
thirty  hours'  travel  from  that  city,  and  being 
situated  immediately  upon  the  Mississippi, 
with  daily  connection  with  the  Northern  Canal 
and  St.  Louis,  and  directly  upon  the  great  daily 
mail  line  from  the  East,  through  Pennsylvania, 
[  10] 


NUMBER  4  PARK  STREET 

Ohio,  and  Indiana."  This  is  very  charming. 
But  Poe,  while  assenting  to  the  proposal,  and 
incidentally  borrowing  from  his  new  publisher 
fifty  dollars  on  account,  balks  at  that  ominous 
word  Oquawka.  "  I  submit  to  you,"  he  replies, 
"whether  it  be  not  possible  to  put  on  our  title- 
page  Published  simultaneously  at  New  Tork  and 
St.  Louis — or  something  equivalent." 

There  speaks,  with  unashamed  frankness, 
your  seasoned  editor  and  author.  To  live  in 
Oquawka,  and  yet  to  convey  the  impression 
of  being  "Published  simultaneously  at  New 
York"!  What  a  dream  it  is!  And  how  it  makes 
cowards  of  us  all!  The  Atlantic,  at  least,  owns 
to  its  Oquawka;  it  puts  "4  Park  Street,  Bos 
ton"  in  bold-faced  type  upon  its  cover,  and 
prints  "New  York"  in  diminutive  italics. 

But  rusticity  will  betray  itself;  your  man 
from  the  provinces  remains  a  provincial  to  the 
end.  Very  possibly  that  lurking  genius  loci 
controls  the  Atlantic,  and  makes  it,  not  an  All- 
American,  as  one  would  like  to  think  it,  but 
only  a  Boston  magazine.  In  vain,  perhaps, 
does  it  summon  men  reared  in  Ohio,  North 
Carolina,  or  New  York  to  become  its  editors ; 
in  vain  does  it  select  its  writers  from  every  state 


PARK-STREET   PAPERS 

in  the  Union.  Doubtless  the  influence  of  the  old 
brick  mansion,  in  the  pleasant  provincial  street, 
pervades,  like  a  subtle  spell,  every  editorial  act 
of  invitation,  acceptance,  or  rejection.  One  can 
not  escape  it  even  by  that  simple  device  of  put 
ting  a  few  hundred  miles  between  oneself  and 
one's  desk.  Number  4  Park  Street  still  keeps 
its  viewless,  immitigable  grip  upon  the  fleeing 
editor.  It  gives  him  what  the  Atlantic's  pros 
perous  Christian  Scientist  neighbors  call  "ab 
sent  treatment."  In  vain  does  he  mingle  with 
"common  fowlers,  tobacco-takers,  and  other 
persons  who  can  give  no  good  account  of  how 
they  spend  their  time";  in  vain  does  he  seat 
himself  at  noontide  upon  some  stump  in  the 
North  Country,  light  an  innocent  pipe,  and 
count  the  fish  in  his  basket.  Telegrams  find 
their  way  through;  the  very  birds  of  the  air 
keep  twittering  of  articles;  Park  Street  and 
"the  traditions  of  the  Atlantic"  are  with  him 
still.  The  skies  change,  but  not  that  habit  of 
trying  all  things  —  even  the  trout  in  one's  bas 
ket —  by  the  test  of  "  availability."  It  is  a  case 
of  ccelum  non  animum. 

Well,  so  let  it  be!  Here  is  the  Atlantic  for 
better  or  worse, — stamped  ineffaceably,  it  may 

[    I*] 


NUMBER  4  PARK  STREET 

be,  with  the  characteristics  of  its  physical  envi 
ronment.  An  up-to-date  journal  has  just  re 
marked  that  "the  venerable  Park  Street  publi 
cation  has  bats  in  its  belfry."  Very  likely.  But 
is  not  its  habitation  just  back  of  the  steeple  of 
Park  Street  Church?  Do  not  its  rear  windows 
look  out  upon  a  graveyard,  and  its  front  win 
dows  upon  that  sorriest  symbol  of  New  Eng 
land  sterility,  a  fountain  which  has  long  since 
forgotten  how  to  flow?  Is  a  mere  magazine  to  be 
luckier  than  the  New  Englander  himself?  He 
too,  poor  soul,  tries  to  be  friendly  with  all  the 
world,  but  he  cannot  learn  that  trick  of  the 
"glad  hand,"  so  easily  acquired  elsewhere.  He 
would  like  to  be  hospitable,  but  somehow  his 
fountains  do  not  spontaneously  bubble  with  oil 
and  wine.  By  nature  he  is  no  hater  of  his  kind, 
and  yet  Heaven  has  placed  him  in  a  climate 
best  described  by  Cotton  Mather:  "New  Eng 
land,  a  country  where  splenetic  Maladies  are 
prevailing  and  pernicious,  perhaps  above  any 
other,  hath  afforded  numberless  instances,  of 
even  pious  people,  who  have  contracted  these 
Melancholy  Indispositions,  which  have  unhinged 
them  from  all  service  or  comfort;  yea,  not  a 
few  persons  have  been  hurried  thereby  to  lay 

[  '3] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Violent  Hands  upon  themselves  at  the  last. 
These  are  among  the  unsearchable  Judgments 
of  God." 

If  the  Atlantic  shares  these  inexplicable  de 
fects  of  the  New  England  qualities,  will  not  its 
readers  accept  its  greetings  none  the  less?  For 
the  Atlantic,  upon  the  word  of  the  Toastmas- 
ter,  means  well.  Jesting  aside,  it  is  mightily 
proud  of  its  own  little  corner  of  the  world.  It 
has  a  stubborn  affection  for  the  simple  ways  of 
the  older  American  life.  It  loves  the  memory 
of  the  gentlemen  and  scholars  and  men  of  let 
ters  who  once  frequented  Park  Street.  It  is 
housed  more  happily  in  the  ancient  Quincy 
mansion  than  in  any  tall  office-building  of  Gath 
or  Askelon.  The  skyscraper  has  not  yet  be 
come  the  sacred  emblem  of  America,  nor  has  it 
been  proved  that  the  vortex  of  the  mob  is  the 
best  place  wherein  to  observe  and  comment 
upon  the  growth  of  our  civilization.  Park  Street 
is  somewhat  apart  from  the  insane  whirl  which 
is  miscalled  "progress."  Yet  the  magazine 
published  at  Number  4  somehow  made  a  place 
for  itself  before  the  days  of  "commercial  inva 
sions  "  and  "  world  records  "  and  "Anglo-Saxon 
domination";  and  it  will  continue  to  prosper 

[  H] 


NUMBER  4  PARK  STREET 

long  after  the  fads  of  the  present  hour  have  given 
place  to  others.  If  ghosts  of  dead  abolitionists 
still  haunt  its  sanctum,  they  are  honest  ghosts, 
and  will  do  the  editorial  policy  no  harm.  And 
if  the  outlook  from  its  windows  is  only  upon 
Boston  Common  instead  of  upon  one  of  the 
great  arteries  of  the  world's  trade,  here,  never 
theless,  upon  the  corner  of  that  Common,  is 
something  which  far  more  than  makes  amends. 
No  magazine  that  has  the  Shaw  Memorial  be 
fore  its  windows  can  be  quite  indifferent  to  hu 
man  liberty,  or  be  persuaded  that  commercial 
supremacy  is  the  noblest  ideal  of  an  American 
citizen. 


Catering  for  the  Public 

THE  best  that  may  be  said  for  Thoreau's  re 
gimen  of  beans  is,  not  that  that  immortal  diet 
was  merely  wholesome  or  cheap,  or  even  that  it 
was  transmuted  into  delightful  literature,  —  but 
that  Thoreau  liked  it.  H  e  was  catering  for  him 
self  and  to  himself.  When  Byron  came  of  age, 
he  provided  the  conventional  roast  ox  and  ale 
for  his  tenants  in  honor  of  his  majority,  and  then 
dined  alone  upon  his  favorite  delicacy,  eggs  and 
bacon.  He  catered  for  his  public  first,  and  to 
himself  afterwards.  But  the  only  editors  who 
permit  themselves  such  solitary  luxury  of  per 
sonal  indulgence  are  the  young  men  who  own, 
write,  and  print  the  queer  little  5X7  magazines 
with  still  queerer  names.  They  give  no  host 
ages  to  fortune  except  paper,  printer's  ink,  and 
time.  If  you  would  seek  a  better  analogy  to  the 
real  editorial  function,  follow  some  excellent  citi 
zen  of  Baltimore,  or  of  a  foreign  city  where  mar- 
[  16] 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

keting  bears  as  yet  no  social  stigma,  as  he  jour 
neys  to  the  public  market,  with  basket  upon  his 
careful  arm,  intent  upon  selecting  a  dinner  for 
his  family. 

Observe  him.  For  all  his  apparent  leisureli- 
ness  of  manner,  the  good  gentleman  is  carrying 
the  burden  of  a  theory.  He  has  certain  con 
victions,  more  or  less  definite,  about  desirable 
combinations  of  food  and  drink.  Convention, 
which  is  only  common  sense  deposited  for  long 
periods  upon  the  reluctant  mind  of  our  species, 
has  dictated  to  him  some  rude  outline  of  a  bill 
of  fare.  He  has  individual  partialities  of  taste, 
but  he  has  also  tolerably  distinct  ideas  of  what 
is  possible  for  his  purse.  Terrapin  and  cham 
pagne  must  be  for  high  days  only.  Our  worthy 
householder  has  also  some  fixed  notions  as  to 
what  is  best  for  his  family.  They  will  thrive 
better,  he  knows,  upon  honest  soups  and  roasts 
than  upon  cocktails  and  Eclairs.  Thus,  as  he 
makes  his  way  from  stall  to  stall,  does  he  select, 
from  the  countless  appetizing  things  displayed, 
the  material  for  a  foreordained  dinner.  He  buys 
it,  precisely  as  he  would  gather  harmoniously 
colored  flowers  for  a  bouquet,  and  tucking  it 
into  that  ample  basket,  takes  it  home  in  all  in- 

[  17] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

nocence  of  heart.  It  is  his  affair,  after  all.  If  he 
and  his  family  like  what  is  purchased,  well  and 
good,  provided  their  tastes  do  not  become  a 
public  scandal,  or  their  cookery  grow  too  men 
acing  to  their  neighbors'  peace  of  mind.  It  is  a 
simple  matter,  this  catering  for  a  family  table, 
though  not  quite  so  simple  as  Thoreau's  beans 
or  Byron's  eggs  and  bacon.  But  where  is  the 
analogy  to  editing  a  magazine?  Is  it  so  cun 
ningly  hidden  away  in  this  image  of  the  house 
holder  that  one  cannot  find  it  at  all? 

"Patience  a  moment,"  —  to  quote  the  most 
impatient  of  poets.  We  are  getting  "  warm,"  as 
the  children  say,  and  in  a  minute  more  we  shall 
discover  our  complete  and  archetypal  editor. 
He. is  foreshadowed  in  the  market-haunting 
householder,  but  he  is — the  being  who  keeps 
boarders. 

Is  it  not  so?  The  boarding-house  keeper  is 
no  vulgar  caterer  to  the  public  in  general.  He 
leaves  that  art  to  the  yellow  journal  and  the  cor 
ner  saloon.  But  he  does  cater  for  that  portion 
of  the  public  who  have  done  him  the  honor  to 
become  his  guests.  Individual  dietary  theory 
may  still  lurk  in  his  imagination,  but  it  must  not 
be  over-indulged.  His  own  favorite  beans  or 

[  18] 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

eggs  and  bacon  will  be  too  monotonous  for  his 
boarders.  The  family  responsibilities  of  the 
householder  linger  in  him,  too;  he  must  not 
poison  his  boarders,  or  subtly  undermine  their 
faith  in  human  nature.  Yet  he  has  his  weekly 
or  monthly  bills  to  meet,  and  he  can  meet  them 
only  by  pleasing  his  patrons.  Not  what  his 
boarders  ought  to  like,  if  they  would  grow  truly 
fat  and  wise  and  good,  but  what  they  do  like, 
gradually  comes  to  affect  the  policy  of  even  the 
most  stubborn-souled  Provider. 

The  Toastmaster  wonders  if  any  readers  of 
the  Atlantic  recall  the  once  famous  pension  in 
Paris,  kept  by  M.  Alphonse  Doucette,  "for 
merly  professor  at  Lyons"?  It  was  known  in 
the  Anglo-American  colonies,  from  one  end  of 
Europe  to  the  other,  as  the  pension  des  violet  tes, 
— spoken  with  a  smile.  Yes,  one  smiled  at  M. 
Doucette's  amiable  vagaries,  but  one  kept  on 
going  there,  and  paying  a  whole  franc  more  a 
day  than  was  charged  at  any  pension  of  its  class 
in  Paris.  For,  as  every  one  hastened  to  explain, 
it  was  really  an  admirably  kept  establishment, 
— and  then,  there  were  the  violets !  Every  night 
at  dinner,  in  season  or  out  of  season,  there  was 
a  tiny  boutonniere  of  them  for  each  gentleman, 

[  19] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

and  a  corsage  bouquet  of  violets  was  laid  by  each 
lady's  plate.  And  Monsieur  himself  always  sat 
at  the  head  of  the  table  and  addressed  his  varie 
gated  company  with  the  most  incessant  and 
exquisite  drollery.  Only  a  franc  more  than  was 
charged  at  the  commonplace  pensions,  and  all 
those  violets  thrown  in! 

It  happened  that  the  Toastmaster  returned 
to  the  Pension  Doucette  very  late  one  night, 
after  witnessing  a  most  dreary  seven-act  tragedy 
at  the  Fran9ais.  In  the  little  office  offthe  dining- 
room  sat  M .  Doucette  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  drink 
ing  sugared  water,  and  looking  more  tragic  than 
Mounet-Sully  at  his  worst.  Something  had 
gone  wrong.  1 1  was  a  trivial  matter  enough,  but 
the  former  professor  at  Lyons  opened  his  whole 
heart.  Never  before  or  since  —  save  once  in 
a  Vermont  woodshed  on  a  Sunday  morning, 
when  his  host  was  morosely  freezing  the  ice 
cream  for  dinner  and  imparting  with  each  slow 
turn  of  the  crank  some  darkly  pessimistic  gen 
eralization  on  the  subject  of  summer  boarders 
—  has  the  Toastmaster  seen  deeper  into  the 
Caterer's  professional  soul.  Oh,  the  sorrows  of 
trying  to  hold  the  fickle  taste  of  English  and 
American  visitors  in  Paris  ! 

[20] 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

"  But  there  are  the  violets,"  I  ventured. 

"The  violets!"  M.  Doucette  spread  his 
palms. 

A  ghastly  suspicion  dawned  upon  me.  Was 
his  love  for  violets  only  a  pretense  ? 

"I  loathe  violets  !  "  he  broke  out.  "  A  bas 
les  violettes  !  The  odor  and  the  sight  of  them 
are  nauseating  to  me.  But  it  is  too  late.  If  I 
were  to  give  up  the  violets,  I  should  lose  my 
trademark,  my  prestige,  my  clientele.  My  pen- 
sionnaires  expect  violets  !  " 

I  saw  the  trap  he  had  laid  for  himself.  And, 
oddly  enough,  my  thoughts  wandered  to  the 
veteran  editor  of  a  famous  magazine,  who  was 
once  discussing  two  sonnets  by  the  same  poet. 
He  had  accepted  one  and  rejected  the  other; 
and  now  he  was  praising  the  one  he  had  re 
turned. 

"  But  it  was  the  other  which  you  printed ! " 
exclaimed  his  puzzled  auditor. 

"Oh,  that  was  my  choice  for  the  magazine, 
certainly;  but  personally — "  And  he  waved 
his  cigar  stub  in  a  parabola  that  opened  up  in 
finite  distances  of  perspective  into  the  editorial 
consciousness.  Was  it  possible  that  he,  too, 
loathed  his  violets? 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

And  yet,  why  not  ?  Not  to  speak  it  pro 
fanely,  does  anybody  suppose  that  Mr.  Mun- 
sey's  favorite  reading  is  the  Munsey  Storiettes  ? 
Does  "the  sound  of  the  swashbuckler  swash 
ing  on  his  buckler  "  seem  less  humorous  to  the 
editors  who  encourage  it  than  it  does  to  Mr. 
Howells,  who  has  laid  aside  his  editorial  armor 
and  can  smile  at  the  weaknesses  of  his  former 
fellow  warriors?  Do  the  peaceful  editors  of  the 
"  Outlook"  really  thrill  with  those  stern  praises 
of  fighting  men  and  fighting  machines  which 
adorn  its  secularized  pages?  Or  does  the  tal 
ented  conductor  of  the  "Ladies'  Home  Jour 
nal  "  really  .  .  .  No,  he  cannot.  As  the  Toast- 
master  makes  these  too  daring  interrogations, 
it  seems  to  him  that  he  perceives  a  faint  odor 
of  violets,  —  not  the  shy  flower  of  the  woodside, 
but  the  brazen-faced,  tightly  laced  boutonniere 
of  the  pavement,  —  in  a  word,  the  violet  of 
commerce. 

That  single  glimpse  of  M.  Doucette  in  his 
shirt-sleeves  and  in  his  despondency  ought  not 
to  obliterate  the  memory  of  a  hundred  nights 
when,  clothed  in  proper  evening  attire,  he 
reigned  gloriously  over  his  long  table-full  of 

[*»...] 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

guests,  giving  and  receiving  pleasure.  When 
all  is  going  well,  catering  has  its  innocent  de 
lights  and  its  honest  satisfactions.  To  invent  a 
new  dish,  or  to  serve  an  old  one  with  recog 
nized  skill,  is  to  share  at  once  the  artist's  joy 
and  the  bourgeois's  complacency.  Yet  having 
once  beheld  the  confidential  shirt-sleeves,  one 
is  thenceforward  subtly  aware  of  them,  hidden 
though  they  be  for  another  hundred  nights  by 
the  dress  coat.  They  are  there,  those  shirt 
sleeves  of  the  Caterer,  and  his  workaday  re 
sponsibilities  are  inescapable.  In  vain  does  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen,  in  one  of  those  papers  which 
not  long  ago  charmed  the  Atlantic's  readers, 
blithely  assert  that  an  editor  "only  vouches 
for  the  readability  of  the  article,  not  for  the 
correctness  of  the  opinions  expressed."  It 
is  a  millennial  dream.  It  asks  too  much  of 
human  nature.  Shall  the  Toastmaster  dare  to 
say,  "My  dear  guests,  I  am  no  mycologist. 
This  dish  may  be  toadstool  or  mushroom  for 
all  I  know,  but  I  assure  you  that  the  odor  is 
appetizing"? 

Alas,  it  is  true  that  he  is  no  mycologist;  he 
prints  every  month  a  dozen  articles  on  topics 
concerning  which  he  knows  nothing,  as  well  as 

[33  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

a  half-dozen  more  whose  views  of  politics  and 
society  and  criticism  are  the  very  opposite  of 
his  own.  He  vouches  for  their  readability,  that 
is  all, — and  sometimes  this  is  quite  enough  to 
take  upon  his  conscience.  But  the  public  is 
shrewdly  suspicious  of  this  happy  impartiality 
of  ignorance.  It  keeps  reminding  the  Toast- 
master  that  he  is  Caterer  too ;  that  he  has  the 
responsibility  of  buying  the  provisions  in  the 
open  market  as  well  as  merely  arranging  them 
on  the  table  and  announcing  the  bill  of  fare. 

In  one  sense,  the  public  is  quite  right.  Some 
one  must  take  the  responsibility  of  decision. 
But  the  public  sometimes  forgets  how  the  Ca 
terer  must  make  up  in  faith  what  he  lacks  in 
special  knowledge.  He  depends  upon  the  hon 
esty  of  the  marketmen,  the  producers.  This 
confidence  is  rarely  betrayed.  M.  Doucette 
would  have  died  of  shame,  no  doubt,  if  he  had 
really  served  toadstools  to  his  trusting  com 
pany.  Yet  it  never  happened.  His  mushrooms 
were  always  mushrooms.  It  is  the  contributors 
to  a  magazine  like  the  Atlantic  who  maintain, 
after  all,  the  fine  traditions  of  the  institution. 
For  purposes  of  convenience,  it  is  assumed  that 
the  editor  knows  what  he  is  purchasing.  In 

[34] 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

reality,  he  is  only  exercising  faith  in  writers  who 
know  what  they  are  writing,  and  whose  views 
—  strange  as  it  may  seem!  —  may  be  worth  con 
sideration  even  if  they  do  not  harmonize  with 
his  own.  The  monthly  table  of  contents  is  nei 
ther  more  nor  less  than  such  a  confession  of 
faith.  It  cannot  be  made  without  a  certain  hardi 
hood.  In  camp,  when  it  is  your  week  to  cook, 
you  can  always  enjoy  the  luxury  of  finding 
fault  with  the  man  who  laid  in  the  supplies :  he 
should  have  bought  more  bacon  or  a  different 
brand  of  coffee,  and  why  did  he  forget  the 
onions?  Even  the  suave  conductor  of  the  din 
ing-car,  who  presents  you  with  a  menu  which 
requests  explicit  criticism  of  meals  and  service, 
can  shrug  his  shoulders  and  explain  that  he  did 
not  buy  that  steak  himself.  But  here  in  the 
magazine  world  there  is  no  shuffling.  Month 
by  month  what  is  in  the  larder  comes  on  to  the 
table,  and  if  it  is  mouldy  or  tough  or  raw  the 
Toastmaster  cannot  blame  the  Caterer,  for  he 
is  both  in  one:  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  the 
red  slayer  and  the  slain. 

Who  is  there  that  can  tell,  after  all,  precisely 
how  to  please  even  the  most  indulgent  of  pub 
lics  ?  The  editors  of  the  Atlantic  have  always 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

been  drafted  from  the  ranks  of  its  contributors; 
mere  contributors,  who  once  inclosed  stamps 
for  the  return  of  manuscript  and  waited  and 
wondered  if  it  would  prove  "magazinable." 
How  can  such  a  one,  drawn  in  a  moment,  like 
Browning's  conscript, 

"  From  the  safe  glad  rear  to  the  dreadful  van,'* 

pretend  that  he  has  been  invested  with  infalli 
bility  ?  "  I  am  fain  to  think  it  vivacious,"  wrote 
Lowell  of  a  certain  Contributor';?  Club  which 
he  was  submitting  to  the  editor  in  1890,  nearly 
thirty  years  after  his  own  editorship  closed, 
"but  if  your  judgment  verify  my  fears,  don't 
scruple  to  return  it.  I  can  easily  make  other 
disposition  of  it,  or  at  worst  there  is  always  the 
waste-basket."  His  Club  was  accepted,  in  spite 
of  Lowell's  fears, — and,  as  it  happened,  it  was 
his  last  contribution  to  the  magazine.  But 
whenever  an  author's  manuscript  carries  the 
bunker  of  the  editor's  judgment,  there  remains 
a  far  more  formidable  hazard  still,  namely,  the 
unknown  taste  of  the  public. 

Who  really  understands  it?  Did  not  Emer 
son,  that  most  unmercenary  of  editors,  accept 
for  the  "  Dial,"  pro  honoris  causa  and  with  a 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

sinking  heart,  that  article  of  Theodore  Parker's 
on  the  Reverend  John  Pierpont,  which  never 
theless,  to  Emerson's  astonishment,  sold  out 
the  entire  edition  ?  Did  not  Coleridge,  an  equally 
unworldly  member  of  the  guild,  lose  five  hun 
dred  subscribers  to  the  ill-starred"  Watchman" 
on  the  publication  of  the  very  second  number, 
by  "a  censurable  application  of  a  text  from 
Isaiah  as  its  motto"? 

Of  one  thing  only  may  the  editor  be  sure.  No 
matter  what  dish  he  serves,  some  one  at  the 
table  will  be  positive  that  it  ought  not  to  have 
been  brought  on  at  all,  or  that  it  should  have 
been  cooked  very  differently.  If  the  Atlantic 
has  dispatched  a  representative  to  Borrioboola 
Gha  to  report  upon  the  condition  of  blankets- 
and-top-boots  in  that  unhappy  country,  some 
correspondent  will  turn  up,  as  soon  as  the  arti 
cle  is  printed,  to  prove  that  he  himself  was  the 
sole  originator  of  the  blankets-and-top-boots 
idea,  and  that  the  Atlantic  has  misrepresented 
the  blessed  work  now  going  forward  there.  May 
he  not  have  ample  space  in  the  next  number 
to  reply?  Well,  very  likely  he  ought  to  have 
it.  But  the  unlucky  editor,  puzzling  at  that 
moment  over  the  problem  of  finding  space  in 

[27  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

the  issue  three  months  hence,  thinks  with  a 
sigh  of  M.  Doucette's  pension.  For  at  those 
long  table-d'hote  dinners  no  one  was  expected 
to  care  for  every  course ;  if  you  allowed  a  dish 
to  pass  or  left  it  barely  tasted,  you  must  for  that 
very  reason  talk  the  more  agreeably  with  your 
neighbor;  and  if  individual  clamor  over  some 
unfortunate  concoction  reached  the  quick  ear 
of  M.  Doucette,  with  what  infinite  ease  and  wit 
did  he  offer  the  critic  the  honor  of  planning  and 
preparing  the  next  meal  in  person, —  an  invi 
tation  which  was  somehow  never  accepted.  Be 
sides,  as  M.  Doucette  used  sometimes  to  hint, 
when  flushed  with  his  success,  if  one  did  not 
like  the  pension  des  violet  tes,  there  were  plenty 
of  other  pensions  across  the  way,  eager  for  pat 
ronage. 

Is  all  this  too  intimate  a  survey  of  the  edi 
torial  pantry  and  kitchen?  Pray  consider  it 
nothing  more  than  the  shirt-sleeved  conversa 
tion  of  that  garrulous  M.  Doucette,  provoked 
into  real  confidence  by  an  unusual  hour.  For 
get,  if  you  will,  the  unskilled  service,  and  re 
member  that  market-place  and  kitchen  are  as 
yet  imperfect  places  in  an  imperfect,  although 

[28] 


CATERING  FOR  THE  PUBLIC 

improvable  and  improving  world.  And  be  tol 
erant  of  the  violets,  purchased  with  such  secret 
anxiety  of  heart,  and  laid  by  each  plate  with 
such  grace  as  Park  Street  may  afford. 


The  Cheerless  Reader 

ONE  of  the  most  genial  of  Atlantic  essayists 
has  lamented  the  disappearance  of  the  Gentle 
Reader.  Can  it  be  possible  that  the  Cheerful 
Reader  is  disappearing,  too?  One  is  loath  to 
believe  it;  for  if  the  Gentle  Reader  and  the 
Cheerful  Reader  are  both  to  vanish,  and  maga 
zines  are  to  be  edited — as  Dr.  Crothers  hinted 
— for  the  benefit  of  the  Intelligent  Reading 
Public  merely,  the  world  of  periodical  litera 
ture  will  be  a  dismal  world  indeed.  Yet  if  one 
were  to  judge  from  those  Letters  to  the  Editor, 
which  the  New  York  "Sun,"  for  instance, 
prints,  and  the  Atlantic,  for  another  instance, 
does  not  print,  the  quality  of  cheerfulness  is 
nowadays  sadly  strained.  What  streams  of  sor 
rowful  correspondence  are  directed  to  4  Park 
Street  after  each  issue  of  this  magazine!  And  so 
few  of  them  seem  to  flow  from  the  pen  of  the 
Cheerful  Reader!  Perhaps  the  Cheerful  Reader 

[30] 


THE  CHEERLESS  READER 

is  busy  earning  his  living,  —  too  busy  to  write. 
It  may  be  that  it  is  only  the  Cheerless  Persons 
who  have  leisure  to  take  their  pens  in  hand  and 
"write  to  the  editor." 

If  the  Atlantic  Monthly  were  a  "reposi 
tory";  if  it  confined  itself  to  the  discussion  of 
Roman  antiquities,  or  the  sonnets  of  Words 
worth,  or  the  planting  of  the  colony  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay,  none  but  the  specialists  would  con 
cern  themselves  with  the  opinions  expressed  in 
its  pages.  But  it  happens  to  be  particularly  in 
terested  in  this  present  world;  curious  about  the 
actual  condition  of  politics  and  society,  of  sci 
ence  and  commerce,  of  art  and  literature.  Above 
all,  it  is  engrossed  with  the  lives  of  the  men  and 
women  who  are  making  America  what  it  is 
and  is  to  be.  The  Atlantic  is  fortunate  enough 
to  command  the  services  of  many  writers  who 
have  something  to  say  upon  these  great  and  per 
plexing  topics  of  human  interest.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  they  will  agree  with  one  another; 
perhaps  they  will  not  even, in  successive  articles, 
agree  with  themselves.  Does  the  Atlantic  print 
a  clever  woman's  criticism  of  that  useful  insti 
tution  the  Kindergarten,  straightway  there  ar 
rive  protesting  letters  from  more  Kindergart* 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

ners  than  it  innocently  supposed  the  whole 
world  could  contain.  When  it  allowed  a  dis 
tinguished  college  president  to  make  a  casual 
remark  about  the  unchanging  curriculum  of 
Jesuit  schools,  there  came  a  furious  chorus  from 
various  Jesuit  contemporaries  (some  of  them, 
it  is  true,  winking  cordially,  meanwhile,  as  if  to 
remind  one  of  the  Pickwickian  flavor  of  the  con 
troversy!):  "Why is  your  contemptible  publi 
cation  Anti-Catholic? "  Alas !  only  afew months 
before,when  Mr.  H.  D.  Sedgwick  had  given  just 
praise  to  the  Roman  Church  in  certain  matters, 
there  was  a  similar  chorus  from  many  Protest 
ant  contemporaries,  who  announced  their  vo- 
ciferant  grief  that  the  Atlantic  had  gone  over  to 
Rome.  Then  it  had  been  the  turn  of  the  Cath 
olic  letter-writers  to  pose  as  Lifelong  Readers. 
But,  queerly  enough,  a  few  months  later  still, 
when  Mr.  Sedgwick  made  an  Italian  journey, 
and  described  a  station-master  who  had  unques 
tionably  had  a  bad  dinner,  and  who  was  low  in 
his  mind  and  spoke  pessimistically  of  the  Pope, 
behold  these  same  Lifelong  Readers  terminat 
ing  their  subscriptions,  and  writing  mournfully 
that  they  could  not  longer  support  such  a  bit 
terly  sectarian  publication  as  the  Atlantic. 

[3*] 


THE  CHEERLESS  READER 

A  more  recent  example  of  the  uneven  dis 
tribution  of  a  sense  of  humor  among  Atlantic 
readers  was  the  commotion  caused  by  Mr.  Eu 
gene  Wood's  paper  on  Mrs.  Eddy's  literary 
style.  Pathetic  as  it  may  seem  to  announce  the 
fact  now,  this  article  was  supposed  to  be  humor 
ous;  its  examination  of  some  of  the  foibles  of 
the  Foundress  was  to  be  interpreted  in  the  spirit 
of  Stevenson's  smiling  paper  on  "John  Knox 
and  his  Relations  to  Women."  But  alas!  the 
able-bodied  letter-writers  of  the  Christian  Sci 
entist  faith  did  not  seem  to  know  their  Steven 
son  ;  and  to  all  Earnest  Persons  in  that  curious 
organization  the  Atlantic  expresses  its  regret 
that  any  of  Mr.  Wood's  sallies  should  have 
given  pain. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  sectarians,  sec- 
tionalists,and  partisans  of  every  hue  will  con 
tinue  to  peruse  their  Atlantic  with  sorrow,  or  at 
least  sufficient  sorrow  for  epistolary  purposes. 
One's  own  hobbyhorse  gets  roughly  shouldered 
to  one  side,  on  the  broad  highway  of  the  world. 
Where  opinions  are  unfettered  and  allowed 
frank  expression,  some  truths  will  be  uttered 
more  wholesome  than  flattering  to  one's  pri 
vate  views.  John  Doe  may  like  the  Atlantic, — 

[33  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Heaven  bless  him! — but  if  he  prefer  to  write 
his  name,  like  a  story  title,  John  Doe,  Prohibi 
tionist,  or  John  Doe,  Baptist  or  Anabaptist, 
Vivisectionist  or  Anti-Vivisectionist,  Suffragist 
or  Anti-Suffragist,  he  will  often  discover  that 
the  wrong  magazine  has  been  sent  to  his  address. 
If  people  insist  upon  regarding  themselves  pri 
marily,  not  as  human  beings,  but  as  mem  bers  of 
some  organization  ending  with  ist  or  er  or  an, 
then  the  weekly  or  monthly  organ  of  their  par 
ticular  faction  will  furnish  them  with  far  more 
congenial  reading  than  the  Atlantic.  The  Gentle 
Reader,  declares  Dr.  Crothers  in  the  essay  al 
ready  mentioned,  is  the  reader  who  "has  no 
ulterior  aims.'1  Precisely.  If  your  chief  purpose 
in  taking  a  magazine  is  to  find  arguments  for 
your  favorite  "cause/' you  are  in  a  parlous  state. 
You  are  in  danger  of  evolving  from  a  merely 
Earnest  Person  into  a  Cheerless  Person. 

The  Comic  Spirit  has  whips  for  such.  Not 
all  of  them  are  punished  as  neatly  as  that  Ear 
nest  Southerner  who  complained  of  a  "  color- 
line"  story  in  the  Atlantic,  "Why  can't  you 
Northerners  be  decent?  "  only  to  learn  that  the 
author  of  the  story  was  a  native  of  his  own 
county;  or  that  Laudator  Temporis  Acti  who 

[34] 


THE   CHEERLESS  READER 

lately  found  fault  with  the  "  silly,  ignorant 
twaddle  "  of  a  certain  article  in  the  Contribu 
tors'  Club,  which,  he  averred,  would  never  have 
been  printed  in  the  good  old  days  of  Mr.  Al- 
drich  or  Mr.  Howells  —  and  which,  as  the 
Comic  Spirit  would  have  it,  was  actually  writ 
ten  by  the  faultless  pen  of  Mr.  Aldrich  him 
self! 

To  have  no  "  ulterior  aims  " !  That  is  a  coun 
sel  of  perfection  for  reader  and  editor  alike,  and 
the  Atlantic  confesses  that  it  would  like  to  be 
thought  to  have  no  ulterior  aims,  except  the 
pleasure  and  profit  of  its  subscribers.  Not  one 
of  its  genuine  Lifelong  Readers  will  accuse  it 
of  dilettanteism,  of  treating  the  vital  topics  of 
the  day  with  indifference.  James  Russell  Low 
ell,  who,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Scudder's  recent 
Life,  "gave  the  Atlantic  a  character  it  has  ever 
since  maintained,''  was  no  Gallic.  But  neither 
was  he  a  Cheerless  Person.  It  is  true  that  from 
the  day  on  which  he  assumed  the  editorship  the 
magazine  was  held  stanchly  to  certain  tenets: 
as,  for  instance,  to  take  but  a  single  example, 
the  belief  that  equality  of  political  privileges  in 
America  should  not  be  affected  by  considera 
tions  of  race  or  religion.  Yet  it  has  given  the 

[35  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

freedom  of  its  pages  to  a  good  many  writers  who 
held  quite  the  opposite  view.  It  has  been  edited 
for  men  and  women  genuinely  curious  about 
affairs,  politics,  literature,  human  society.  It  is 
not  preoccupied  with  the  claims  of  any  particu 
lar  sect  or  party  or  philosophy.  "Thought 
men"  and  "fact  men,"  theorizers  and  workers, 
have  alike  addressed  its  readers,  provided  they 
had  something  magazinable  to  say,  and  could 
say  it  in  an  interesting  fashion.  To  imagine  that 
the  contributors  to  such  a  magazine  will  always 
agree  with  the  editor,  or  please  all  the  readers, 
or  indeed  any  reader  in  all  his  moods  and  opin 
ions  and  convictions,  is  to  hold  a  singularly 
parochial  view  of  periodical  literature.  It  is  only 
your  worthy  rustic  who  wants  nothing  "in  the 
paper"  which  he  does  not  already  believe.  Un 
less  his  political  or  religious  opinions,  derived 
largely  from  it,  are  constantly  reflected  in  it,  he 
will  —  as  the  saying  used  to  be  —  "  stop  the 
Tribune  "  ! 

The  ideal  magazine-reading  mood  —  is  it 
not?  —  is  that  of  well-bred  people  listening  to 
the  after-dinner  conversation  in  public  which 
has  happily  succeeded  after-dinner  "oratory." 
No  matter  how  varied  and  attractive  the  pro- 

[36] 


THE  CHEERLESS  READER 

gramme  of  addresses  may  be,  no  guest  will  be 
thrilled  by  every  speaker.  You  are  perhaps 
fortunate  if  you  are  thrilled  at  all !  But  if  the 
speeches  are  tolerably  short,  and  represent  a 
wide  range  of  opinion,  and  are  cleverly  phrased, 
one  may  be  expected  to  listen  without  making 
oneself  conspicuous  by  either  protest  or  ap 
plause.  No  man,  perhaps,  makes  precisely  the 
speech  you  would  like  to  hear.  He  may  hurt 
somebody's  feelings,  —  possibly  your  own. 
This  may  be  inevitable,  or  merely  the  result  of 
inadvertency ;  or  it  may  be  the  fault  of  the 
Toastmaster,  who  ought  to  have  warned  the 
speaker  that  So-and-Sowas  at  the  banquet,  and 
that  certain  things  had  better  be  left  unsaid.  A 
quicker-witted  Toastmaster,  for  example,  might 
have  nudged  Mr.  Eugene  Wood  under  the 
table,  by  way  of  friendly  warning  that  the  exact 
number  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  marriages  was  a  vex 
atious  theme  to  certain  persons  who  had  pur 
chased  dinner-tickets,  and  that  in  any  case  it  had 
nothing  to  do  (save  as  bearing  upon  that  lady's 
ripeness  of  experience)  with  the  subject  of  her 
literary  style. 

For  the  magazine  means   to   spread  each 
month  a  hospitable  board,  and  to  draw  around 

[37] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

it  many  men  of  many  minds.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
and  Mr.  Washington  have  both  sat  there,  and 
we  hope  that  both  men  will  honor  the  Atlantic 
many  times  again,  by  contributing  their  quota 
to  its  wit  and  wisdom.  People  who  do  not  like 
good  company,  who  prefer  to  dine  exclusively 
with  Cheerless  Persons  of  Their  Own  Sort,  are 
not  under  the  slightest  obligation  to  attend. 
Our  "mahogany  tree"  has  to  be  made  longer, 
month  by  month,  to  accommodate  the  new 
guests  that  wish  to  mingle  with  the  old.  To  add 
more  leaves  to  such  an  infinitely  extensible 
dining-table  is,  of  course,  a  pleasure.  Yet  it  will 
do  no  harm  to  sit  closer,,  too,  with  an  amiable 
disposition  to  be  pleased,  if  possible,  with  one's 
fellow  guests,  and  to  make  all  needful  allowance 
for  a  most  fallible  Toastmaster. 


"A  Readable  Proposition" 

ONCE  more  the  Toastmaster  rises  to  his  feet, 
to  offer  greetings  to  the  guests  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  table  has  become  a  long  one,  and  the  faces 
turned  momentarily  toward  the  Toastmaster 
are  mainly  those  of  Cheerful  Readers.  If  any  are 
secretly  bored  or  rebellious  at  the  bill  of  fare, 
they  seem,  at  this  kindly  instant,  gracious 
enough  not  to  betray  it.  Most  of  them,  as  the 
Toastmaster  fancies, — for  he  is  not  sufficiently 
keen-sighted  to  see  to  the  end  of  such  a  table, 
and  makes  many  a  mistake  in  consequence !  — 
exhibit  a  tolerant  willingness  to  be  either  edi 
fied  or  amused.  And,  indeed,  both  edification 
and  amusement  await  them,  the  Toastmaster 
believes,  as  soon  as  his  own  little  speech  is  over. 
He  chooses  his  text  from  one  of  those  plain- 
spoken  letters  which  evince  the  interest  taken 
in  the  Atlantic  by  persons  who  have  parted  with 
their  four  dollars  a  year,  and  who  keep,  as  they 

'[39] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

should,  a  sharp  eye  upon  their  investment.  The 
letter  is  from  a  Wyoming  sheep-herder,  and 
here  is  one  of  its  most  pleasing  sentences:  "  I 
would  like  you  to  know  that  you  have  one  sub 
scriber  who  has  no  kick  coming,  and  who  thinks 
the  Atlantic  is  a  readable  proposition  all  right." 
May  the  clear  Wyoming  sky  long  smile  upon 
this  solitary  sheep-herder!  May  his  flocks  in 
crease,  and  his  vocabulary  remain  unspoiled! 
He  has  a  discriminating  taste.  Or  is  it  merely 
the  liberal  Western  air  which  prompts  him  to 
utter  what  many  other  subscribers  silently  be 
lieve?  After  all,  one  can  never  tell  who  is  going 
to  like  the  gallant  old  magazine.  The  Toast- 
master  finds  himself  scrutinizing,  with  perhaps 
too  frank  an  admiration,  the  persons  who  have 
the  excellent  habit  of  reading  the  Atlantic  in 
hotels  and  trains  and  electric  cars.  A  pretty 
girl  never  seems  so  pretty,  to  him,  as  when  she 
is  carrying  that  bit  of  dull  orange  color ;  and  the 
most  prosaic  middle-aged  searcher  after  truth 
never  appears  in  such  imminent  prospect  of  a 
radiant  discovery  as  when  cutting  the  Atlantic's 
uncut  leaves.  He  remembers  sitting  once  in  an 
overland  train  as  it  coasted  down  the  slope  of 
the  Sierras  through  the  Bret  Harte  country. 
[40] 


"A  READABLE  PROPOSITION" 

He  was  thinking  of  those  brilliant  early  stories 
of  Harte's  which  the  Atlantic  published,  and 
was  watching  gloomily,  all  the  while,  a  certain 
bishop  who  was  reading  the  "  Smart  Set."  The 
train  pulled  up  at  a  little  station,  and  a  muddy- 
trousered  miner,  looking  for  all  the  world  like 
Kentuck,  entered  the  car,  stumbled  past  the 
comfortably  extended  legs  of  the  bishop,  and 
seating  himself  at  the  magazine  table,  promptly 
selected  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  The  Toastmas- 
ter  grew  cheerful  at  once.  He  began  to  think 
of  cogent  reasonswhy  the  good  bishop  should 
prefer  the  "  Smart  Set,"  and  nothing  could 
have  persuaded  him  that  the  miner  was  not  a 
Superior  Person. 

The  odd  thing  is  that  it  is  impossible  to  guess 
where  these  Superior  Persons  are  to  be  found. 
It  is  an  illuminating  experience  to  examine  the 
Atlantic's  subscription  list  in  some  city  or  town 
which  happens  to  be  well  known  to  the  investi 
gator.  To  subscribe  to  this  magazine  is  appar 
ently  no  longer  —  as  it  was  once  said  to  be  in 
certain  newly  settled  communities — a  sufficient 
evidence  of  one's  social  standing.  Many  of  the 
Best  People  who  would  be  expected  to  take  it 
evidently  belong  in  the  class  who  vaguely  "see 

[41  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

all  the  magazines  at  the  Club"  ;  while  the  Su 
perior  Persons  who  actually  pay  the  four  dol 
lars  are  often  to  be  found  in  the  side  streets  and 
hall-bedrooms  and  lonely  farmhouses.  Other 
magazines,  it  is  believed,  have  had  the  same  ex 
perience  in  endeavoring  to  discover  the  exact 
habitat  of  the  reading  class.  It  is  such  readers, 
in  truth,  who  form  our  only  real  reading  class 
in  this  country.  If  the  Atlantic  continues  to  in 
terest  them,  year  after  year,  it  is  not  because 
the  magazine  is  a  badge  of  respectability,  but 
simply  because  it  is  found  to  be  "a  readable 
proposition." 

The  dictionaries  give  the  bare  outline  of  that 
finely  American  term,  "  proposition,"  but  they 
do  not  even  hint  at  the  warmth  and  coloring 
given  to  it  on  the  lips  of  living  men.  What  a 
wholesome,  venturesome,  tempting  American 
ism  it  is!  It  savors  of  something  coming  even 
if  not  yet  arrived;  of  something  alive  and  not 
yetdead  and  done  with.  It  suggests,  indeed,  un 
listed  stocks  and  extra-hazardous  enterprises, 
rather  than  the  commonplace  security  of  a  three 
per  cent  government  bond.  Such  a  bond  is  well 
enough  in  its  way,  of  course,  but  what  is  its  ap 
peal  to  the  imagination,  after  all,  when  com- 

[42] 


"A  READABLE  PROPOSITION" 

pared  with  a  "  proposition  "  ?  The  spirit  of  all 
the  beckoning  future  is  in  that  word,  and  yet 
with  how  deft  a  compliment  does  our  Wyoming 
friend  apply  it  to  the  magazine,  as  if  he  had  re 
alized  upon  his  investment,  and  the  potential 
pleasure  offered  by  his  subscription  were  already 
a  known  quantity ! 

With  what  an  instinct,  likewise,  does  the  gen 
tleman  from  Wyoming  select  his  inevitable  word 
when  he  speaks  of  the  Atlantic  as  a  readable 
proposition !  "  It  is  better  to  be  dumb  than  not 
to  be  understood,"  said  the  lively  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  who  was  a  born  magazinist,  although 
of  the  twelfth  century.  When  a  magazine  fails 
to  be  readable,  it  is  as  if  a  man  failed  in  honesty 
or  a  woman  in  goodness.  Its  character  is  gone. 
There  are  tons  of  respectable  printed  material 
which  is  under  no  necessity  of  being  readable: 
such  as  Doctor's  Dissertations,  Presidential 
Messages,  books  written  in  the  jargon  of  some 
special  science,  and  journals  devoted  to  some  pet 
ist  or  ism  of  the  hour.  Most  unreadable  of  all 
is  the  matter  written  with  a  painful  effort  to  be 
read  by  everybody.  Witness  the  average  His 
torical  Romance  of  the  season!  Not  long  ago 
the  Toastmaster  happened  to  overhear  a  wor- 

[43] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

thy  nursemaid  exchanging  literary  confidences 
with  the  cook,  apropos  of  a  historical  novel 
which  was  then  the  best-selling  book  of  the  min 
ute.  "  Sure  it 's  a  fine  book,"  testified  Maggie 
heartily,  and  then  added,  as  if  puzzled  by  her 
own  ineptitude, "  but  somehow  I  ain't  very  far 
with  it."  Exactly.  Neither  was  the  Toastmas- 
ter  very  far  with  it.  Between  a  book  written  to 
be  sold  by  the  hundred  thousand  and  a  book 
written  to  be  put  away  in  a  drawer,  like  "  Pride 
and  Prejudice"  and  the  first  draft  of  "Waver- 
ley,"  it  is  tolerably  easy  to  say  which  is  the 
more  likely  to  prove  permanently  readable. 

A  good  many  readers,  and  not  all  of  them 
nursemaids,  either,  have  been  complaining  that 
the  poetry  published  in  American  magazines  is 
unreadable,  too.  Perhaps  they  ought  to  say 
"verse"  instead  of  "poetry,"  for  it  is  obvious 
that  most  poets  nowadays  are  not  working  at 
their  trade.  Some  of  them  are  dead,  others  have 
gone  into  politics  or  play-writing;  but  the  si 
lence  of  the  majority  can  be  accounted  for  only 
on  the  theory  that  the  poets  are  out  on  a  sympa 
thetic  strike.  Who  can  blame  them  ?  Poor  pay, 
long  hours,  an  apathetic  public,  and  thousands 
of  verse-writers  ready  to  take  the  poets'  places 

[44] 


"A  READABLE  PROPOSITION " 

at  any  moment!  The  worst  of  it  is  that  these 
very  "  scabs  " — the  word  is  used  in  its  stern 
economic  significance  —  are  all  bent  upon  pro 
ducing  "  readable  "  verse.  They  not  only  con 
tinue  to  rhyme 

'. youth 

".-'..     • morning 

.      .      .      .... truth 

warning 

as  the  Autocrat  humorously  complained  in 
these  pages  long  ago,  but  they  insist  upon  tell 
ing  us  all  about  their  little  emotions,  with  the 
tiresome  particularity  of  a  dull  sportsman  who 
persists  in  explaining  just  why  he  failed  to  bag 
that  last  bird.  Their  mind  to  them  a  kingdom 
is,  and,  as  somebody  has  unkindly  said  of  them, 
the  smaller  the  mind  the  greater  appears  the 
kingdom.  No  wonder  the  public  has  grown 
callous  to  all  this  counting  of  the  pulses  and 
auscultation  of  the  chest.  The  exploitation  of 
insignificant  personalities,  bent  upon  securing 
publicity,  makes  verse  as  unreadable  as  the  "  so 
ciety  column"  of  a  Sunday  paper.  No  wonder 
that  so  many  real  poets  continue  to  stay  out  on 
strike.  But  some  day  there  will  come  along  a 
modern  hero  in  the  guise  of  a  strapping  strike- 

[45] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

breaker  of  a  poet,  who  would  rather  work  at  his 
job  than  not,  who,  forgetting  himself,  believes 
that  the  world  is  a  big  world  and  a  brave  one, 
and  who  sings  about  it  because  he  must,  and  not 
because  he  wants  to  make  readable  "copy."  He 
will  get  all  the  patronage  away  from  the  clever 
verse-writers,  and  then  the  poets  will  begin  to 
slink  back,  one  by  one,  to  ask  for  their  old  places. 
In  the  meantime  the  Atlantic  tries  to  keep  a 
sharp  and  welcoming  eye  upon  anything  that 
looks  like  a  broad-shouldered  strike-breaker 
sauntering  down  Park  Street.  Often  it  is  de 
ceived  and  finds  that  the  new  personage  is  only 
one  more  of  those  talented  verse-writers,  but 
still  it  keeps  on  watching. 

What  is  it,  after  all,  that  makes  a  magazine 
readable  ?  Must  we  not  fall  back  upon  the  well- 
tested  phrase,  and  say  that  "human  interest" 
is  the  one  essential  quality  ?  But  the  human  in 
terest  must  be  real,  and  not  assumed  for  reve 
nue  only.  Two  of  the  most  uniformly  reada 
ble  newspapers  in  this  country  are  the  New 
York"  Sun  "  and  the  "  Springfield  Republican." 
Neither  can  be  read  without  wrath,  or  given  up 
without  a  feeling  that  the  world  has  grown 
duller.  Both  are  vigorous,  alert,  and  well  writ- 

[46] 


"A  READABLE  PROPOSITION" 

ten.  They  differ  in  their  attitude  toward  most 
public  questions ;  they  differ  in  field,  one  being 
"  metropolitan  "  and  the  other  "  provincial/*  — 
though  which  is  the  more  truly  provincial  who 
is  bold  enough  to  say? — and  there  is  a  differ 
ence  in  personal  style  which  may  be  detected 
in  almost  every  sentence.  Yet  both,  from  the 
first  line  to  the  last,  quicken  one's  curiosity,  in 
terest,  knowledge,  about  human  life.  They 
manage  to  convey  to  the  most  indifferent  reader 
a  vivid  sense  of  what  people  are  thinking  about, 
what  they  feel  and  really  are. 

It  is  this  quality, — is  it  not? — which,  mak 
ing  due  allowance  for  differences  in  range,  per 
spective,  and  literary  method,  should  also  char 
acterize  a  monthly  magazine.  The  Atlantic  has 
many  competitors.  The  more  the  better.  Each 
of  them  fulfills  some  public  service  peculiar  to 
itself, — even  if  it  be  only  to  serve  as  an  "awful 
example."  Each  of  them  reaches  many  per 
sons  whom  the  Atlantic  cannot  reach  without 
changing  its  character  and  aim.  The  colored  il 
lustrations  of  one,  the  unimpeachable  innocu- 
ousness  of  another,  the  agility  of  a  third  in 
jumping  to  the  majority  side  of  every  question, 
do  not  arouse  the  Atlantic's  envy.  It  would 

[47] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

like,  indeed,  to  give  its  contributors  a  still  am 
pler  audience,  because  it  believes  that  all  of 
them  have  something  to  say  which  is  worth  lis 
tening  to.  But  these  opinions  of  its  contribu 
tors  are  their  own,  —  as  the  Toastmaster  has 
pointed  out  more  than  once  in  his  annual  re 
marks, — and  are  not  to  be  identified  with 
whatever  personal  opinions  may  be  held  by  the 
Atlantic's  editors  or  publishers.  Sydney  Smith 
claimed  that  there  were  persons  who  would 
speak  disrespectfully  of  the  equator;  and  some 
writers  for  the  Atlantic  have  been  known  to  ap 
proach  with  a  freedom  bordering  upon  levity 
such  topics  as  Emerson,  the  Kindergarten,  the 
New  England  Hill  Town,  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
the  Philippine  Commission,  Lincoln's  Vocab 
ulary,  the  Tariff,  and  Mr.  Henry  James.  This 
list  might  even  be  extended.  There  are,  alas, 
live  wires  attached  to  all  live  subjects  as  well  as 
to  some  subjects  that  seem  tolerably  dead.  The 
Atlantic  has  no  Index  of  forbidden  themes,  and 
wishes  all  its  writers  to  say  what  they  think,  sub 
ject  to  the  general  rules  of  after-dinner  courtesy. 
But  it  does  smile  occasionally  over  this  identifi 
cation  of  supposed  editorial  opinion  with  the 
signed  opinions  of  responsible  contributors.  If 

[48  ] 


"A  READABLE  PROPOSITION  " 

an  article  appears  in  the  Atlantic,  it  is  because  the 
contribution  seems,  in  the  fallible  judgment  of 
the  Caterer,  worth  putting  upon  the  table.  If 
the  boarders  do  not  like  it,  the  blame  must  be 
placed  where  it  belongs.  Probably  the  fault  lies 
with  the  Caterer,  but  it  is  barely  possible  that  it 
may  lie,  at  times,  with  some  prenatal  or  premil- 
lennial  prejudices  of  the  boarders  themselves. 

Our  "readable  proposition,"  then,  is  the  dis 
cussion  from  month  to  month,  by  many  men 
of  many  minds,  of  that  American  life  which 
intimately  affects  the  destiny  of  us  all.  If  one 
wishes  to  study  that  life  upon  its  external  as 
pects,  the  advertising  pages  of  any  prosperous 
magazine  give  a  bewilderingly  rich  impression 
of  our  material  progress.  There  is  scarcely  a 
single  physical  activity  or  luxury,  from  drawing 
one's  cold  tub  in  the  morning  to  setting  the 
burglar  alarm  at  night,  which  is  not  pictured 
and  glorified  upon  these  electrotyped  pages. 
But  something  in  us  keeps  obstinately  ask 
ing:— 

"And  afterwards,  what  else?" 

For  it  makes  little  difference  whether  a  man 
speeds  in  his  new  automobile  over  the  new 
macadam  to  his  new  country  house,  —  man  and 

[49] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

machine  and  road  and  house  exactly  like  the 
advertisements! — or  climbs  wearily  up  to  the 
hall-bedroom  again  at  the  end  of  a  day's  work, 
to  console  himself  with  a  pipe  and  a  book.  Each 
man  must  sit  down  at  last  with  his  old  self; 
with  the  old  hopes,  sorrows,  dreams ;  with  the 
old  will  to  "  win  out "  somehow ;  with  that  inner 
world,  in  short,  which  Literature  interprets,  and 
no  hint  of  which  appears  in  the  advertising 
pages.  A  true  mirror  of  life  is  what  a  literary 
magazine  aspires  to  be.  But  it  ought  to  reflect 
something  deeper  than  the  patented,  nickel- 
plated  conveniences  and  triumphs  of  a  material 
civilization.  It  should  also  serve  as  a  mirror  for 
the  ardors  and  loyalties,  the  patriotism  and  the 
growing  world-consciousness  of  the  American 
people. 

Any  writer  mistakes  our  people  who  does  not 
recognize  their  fundamental  idealism.  Some  of 
us  inherit  it  from  Puritan  ancestors  who  were 
such  idealists,  it  is  said,  that  they  had  to  hold 
on  hard  to  the  huckleberry  bushes  to  keep  from 
being  translated.  Others  of  us  have  brought 
hither  a  no  less  fine  idealism,  though  it  be  the 
product  of  an  alien  faith  and  an  alien  soil.  But 
it  is  everywhere  in  evidence,  setting  up  popular 

[  so] 


"A  READABLE  PROPOSITION" 

idols  and  pulling  them  down,  blundering  here 
and  righting  a  blunder  there,  questioning  our 
present  social  and  economic  machinery,  em 
phasizing  party  lines  when  they  stand  for  some 
thing  real,  smashing  them  when  trickery  grows 
too  apparent,  and  building  everywhere  with 
restless  energy  a  new  America  out  of  materials 
that  have  never  had  time  to  grow  old.  Inn 
keepers  abroad  and  advertising  panels  at  home 
unite  in  the  declaration  that  "Americans  want 
the  best."  It  is  a  good  symptom,  and  it  has  a 
lesson  for  the  magazinist.  Those  periodicals 
which  are  obtaining  the  widest  reading  are  those 
which  present  the  most  various,  hopeful,  and 
full-blooded  pictures  of  the  men  and  the  vital 
forces  that  are  daily  creating  for  us  a  new  world. 
Never  were  our  life  and  the  life  of  the  globe  so 
interesting.  The  magazine  desires  long  to  re 
main  "a  readable  proposition."  It  surely  will, 
if  it  continues  in  its  own  way  to  reflect  and  in 
terpret,  as  all  literature  somehow  succeeds  in 
reflecting  and  interpreting,  the  fascination  of 
life  itself. 


Turning  the  Old  Leaves 

THERE  is  too  much  said  at  New  Year's  — 
in  the  Toastmaster's  opinion  —  about  turning 
over  a  new  leaf.  Are  the  old  leaves  all  so  badly 
written  that  one  must  hasten  to  forget  them  ? 
Is  the  blank  whiteness  of  the  untouched  page 
more  pleasant  to  the  eye  or  more  fortifying  to 
the  will  than  those  closely  written,  underlined, 
untidy,  but  familiar  pages  which  make  up  the 
story  of  one's  life  ?  These  pages  of  experience 
turn  so  easily  in  the  hand !  They  open  by  them 
selves  to  so  many  passages  worth  remembering. 
Will  the  trim  virgin  pages  of  the  New  Year 
yield  anything  really  more  desirable?  Doubt 
less  there  may  be  finer  bread  than  is  made  of 
wheat,  and  a  nobler  fish  than  the  salmon,  and 
a  better  book  than  "  Henry  Esmond,"  but  we 
shall  be  lucky  if  we  find  them  during  the  next 
twelve  months. 

No,  this  annual  counsel  to  turn  over  a  new 


TURNING  THE  OLD  LEAVES 

leaf  is  but  a  restless,  dissatisfied  injunction. 
One's  old  habits  may  not  have  been  such  bad 
habits,  after  all.  Does  the  handwriting  always 
improve  with  age  and  practice  ?  Some  of  the  old 
habits  may  be  deemed  actually  good,  even  by 
the  sharpest-visaged  conscience  that  ever  went 
peering  about,  like  a  meticulous  housekeeper, 
on  New  Year's  morning.  And  even  if  the  old 
ways,  hopes,  and  day's  works  were  not  all  of 
the  very  first  quality,  the  Toastmaster  protests 
against  that  unmindful  virtue  that  would  turn 
them  all  outdoors  at  the  end  of  December,  to 
make  room  for  the  guests  of  the  New  Year. 
The  new  guests  come,  indeed,  but  the  house 
seems  empty. 

Have  any  of  the  Atlantic's  readers,  in  the 
course  of  one  of  those  changes  of  residence  so 
typical  of  our  migratory  race  and  epoch,  ever 
sat  perplexed  before  a  packing-box,  hesitating 
whether  to  keep  or  throw  away  a  bundle  of  old 
cheque-books?  Hesitation  is  dangerous.  If 
you  once  begin  to  turn  over  the  stubs  of  those 
cheques  long  since  drawn  and  cashed,  the  mo 
ments  slip  by  unheeded.  What  an  odd  sum 
mary  of  experience  is  chronicled  in  those  names 
and  dates  and  figures  !  They  are  abstracts  of 

[53  ]' 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

duties  and  pleasures  that  had  slipped  quite 
down  between  the  cracks  of  memory,  yet  here 
they  are  as  fresh  as  yesterday's.  Here  are  the 
butcher,  the  baker,  and  the  candlestick-maker, 
with  faces  no  longer  blurred,  for  you,  by  dozens 
of  their  successors.  You  smile  at  this  stub,  and 
the  next  you  turn  hastily  over ;  you  find  your 
self  angry  still  at  the  record  of  some  ancient  ex 
tortion  on  the  part  of  plumber  or  tax-gatherer; 
you  look  ruefully  at  the  figures  representing 
some  unwonted  extravagance  or  folly;  or  you 
catch  yourself  in  the  act  of  pious  approbation 
of  some  forgotten  benevolence.  That  cheque, 
at  least,  ought  to  have  been  larger  !  A  curious 
sense  of  reality  takes  possession  of  you,  as  you 
scan  these  laconic  entries.  They  recall  so  much. 
The  half-filled  packing-box,  the  littered  room, 
the  confused  misery  of  migration,  all  shift  into 
dream-land ;  while  you,  through  the  magic 
wrought  by  a  few  dusty,  outlawed  slips  of  paper, 
seem  to  feel  the  touch  of  Life's  very  garment, 
—  it  is  all  so  real !  A  great  historian  once 
sneered  at  that  method  of  historical  research 
which  scrutinizes  mediaeval  wash-lists  in  the 
hope  of  learning  something  about  mediaeval 
men  and  women.  If  he  had  ever  looked  over  his 

C  54] 


TURNING  THE  OLD  LEAVES 

own  old  cheque-books,  he  would  have  spared 
the  sneer. 

Some  such  intimate  contact  with  the  spirit  of 
this  magazine  has  the  Toastmaster  recently  ex 
perienced,  in  turning  the  leaves  of  the  earliest 
numbers.  Those  were  cheque-books  indeed  ! 
What  rich  accounts  of  wit,  of  poetry,  and  of 
scholarship  to  draw  upon,  and  how  liberal  were 
the  drafts  !  And  the  readers  of  that  day,  eager 
for  intellectual  pleasures,  for  new  information, 
for  moral  stimulus,  indorsed  so  promptly  the 
cheques  drawn  by  the  contributors  !  To  each 
subscriber  there  must  have  come  the  excited 
consciousness  of  a  largesse  up  to  the  very  limit 
of  his  capacity  for  enjoyment.  There  were  dull 
contributions  now  and  then,  and  doubtless  there 
was  an  unappreciative  reader  here  and  there,  but 
if  the  subscriber  of  fifty  years  ago  did  not,  in  the 
course  of  a  twelve-month,  have  his  money's 
worth  of  pleasure,  it  was  not  the  fault  of  Dr. 
Holmes  and  Professor  Lowell  and  the  other 
capitalists  of  wit  and  learning.  These  Auto 
crats,  Biglows,  and  other  Olympians  drew  the 
cheques  lavishly,  and  the  Atlantic  subscribers 
might  cash  them  if  they  wished. 

It  is  all  recorded  in  those  bound  volumes 

[55] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

that  stand  upon  the  library  shelves  of  so  many  of 
the  older  generation  of  Atlantic  readers.  There 
are  the  names  and  dates  and  subjects.  Some  of 
them  are  still  vital,  still  a  part  of  our  national 
literature.  Yet  a  large  proportion  of  the  pages 
in  those  files  must  necessarily  seem  of  outworn 
value  unless  they  are  viewed  as  stubs  in  an  old 
cheque-book.  So  read  by  the  curious  or  pious, 
how  full  of  significance  they  become  for  the  in 
terpretation  of  the  last  half-century  of  American 
letters  and  American  history !  The  fading,  out 
lawed  leaves  are  once  more  coin  of  the  realm  of 
thought.  Behind  the  dusty  volumes  rise  troops 
of  eager  readers, —  applauding,  questioning, 
combative, —  precisely  like  the  subscribers  of 
to-day.  For  that  matter,  the  Atlantic  is  im 
mensely  proud  that  a  long  roll  of  names,  first 
inscribed  in  1857,  are  still  upon  its  subscription 
lists.  When  two  or  three  of  this  old  guard  take 
pains  to  write  and  say  that  a  current  article  is 
good,  the  Toastmaster  believes  them.  Only  the 
other  day  one  of  these  valiant  souls  wrote  that 
she  had  just  finished  reading  every  volume  from 
the  beginning,  except  for  a  period  of  two  years, 
when  the  magazine  was  unaccountably  dull! 
The  Toastmaster,  who  has  the  curiosity  but  not 

[56] 


TURNING  THE  OLD  LEAVES 

the  courage  to  ask  the  date  of  those  two  lean 
years,  congratulates  his  correspondent  upon 
possessing  the  alchemy  of  an  imagination  which 
brings  the  old  days  back  and  still  hears  the  old 
voices  speaking  with  undiminished  charm. 

To  most  of  us,  lacking  as  we  do  that  evoking 
imagination,  the  secret  of  literary  vitality  seems 
baffling,  incommunicable.  Why  should  it  be 
that  one  poem  or  story,  printed  for  good  "jour 
nalistic"  reasons  in  1857,  should  be  recognized 
a  half-century  later  as  "  literature,"  while  its 
companion  pieces  have  utterly  vanished  from 
memory?  We  have  our  private  guesses,  of 
course,  and  our  triumphant  public  demonstra 
tions  of  the  presence  of  this  or  that  antiseptic 
quality  in  the  piece  in  question.  But  the  expla 
nations  do  not  wholly  explain.  It  is  only  the 
listening  imagination  that  can  divine  the  mys 
tery,  and  distinguish  the  immortal  from  the 
transient  voices. 

In  one  sense,  indeed,  the  changes  wrought 
by  the  last  half-century  are  apparent  to  the  most 
careless  eye  that  glances  over  those  bound  vol 
umes  of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  Since 
that  panic  year  of  1857 — darkened  by  financial 
disaster  and  by  the  ever-nearing  conflict  over 

[57] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

slavery — what  political,  social,  and  commercial 
developments  have  altered  the  material  aspect 
of  the  United  States !  The  magazine  writers 
who  have  striven  to  interpret  these  changes 
have  been  dealing  with  a  shifting  world.  It  is 
like  photographing  from  a  raft  the  waves  of  the 
sea.  The  writers  themselves  have  often  altered 
their  convictions  and  purpose ;  they  have  gained 
or  lost  in  talent  or  inspiration.  Unknown  to 
themselves,  the  magazine-reading  public  has 
reassessed  them,  decade  after  decade,  at  a  lower, 
or  perhaps  at  a  higher  figure.  That  public  itself 
is  constantly  dropping  away,  and  is  as  con 
stantly  renewed.  It  is  necessarily  fickle  in  its 
attachments,  given  to  swift  enthusiasms  and 
long  forgetfulness.  "Who  was  that  young  fel 
low  who  went  up  and  came  down  again  like  a 
rocket  ? "  asked  Frank  Stockton  of  the  Toast- 
master,  a  year  or  two  after  "The  Red  Badge  of 
Courage"  had  been  published;  "was  it  William 
Crane? "  "Stephen,"  corrected  the  Toastmaster. 
There  was  a  whimsical  smile  upon  Stockton's 
dark,  gentle,  tired  face,  as  if  he  meant  to  hint 
that  all  our  little  rockets  will  come  down  in  time. 
And  no  doubt  most  of  them  do.  There  are  al 
ready  persons  who  ask  "who  was  Frank  Stock- 

[58] 


TURNING  THE  OLD  LEAVES 

ton?"  and  the  Toastmaster  remembers  dining 
at  an  American  table  with  an  accomplished  and 
cultivated  company,  not  one  of  whom,  as  it 
turned  out,  had  ever  read  "Vanity  Fair." 

Amid  all  this  impermanence,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  even  a  casual  scrutiny  of  the  Atlantic  files 
should  reveal  editorial  inconsistencies  and  par 
tialities  of  vision.  Here  is  the  dusty  record  of 
unskillful  literary  prophecies,  of  Presidential 
"booms"  that  came  to  nothing,  of  social  tend 
encies  that  sloped,  as  it  proved,  in  unsuspected 
directions,  and  of  Utopian  rearrangements  that 
still  await  the  fit  hour  and  the  man.  Some  of 
the  intrenched  political  and  social  abuses  against 
which  the  Atlantic's  writers  have  turned  their 
heaviest  guns  seem  as  stoutly  intrenched  as 
ever,  and  likely  to  afford  splendid  shooting  for 
another  half-century.  Many  of  the  "big"  arti 
cles  which  were  expected  to  batter  down  these 
forts  of  folly  are  now  recognized  by  the  very 
office-boys  as  ill-aimed  or  premature.  The  best 
editorial  devices  for  winning  and  holding  read 
ers  often  seem,  in  the  retrospect,  so  illogical 
and  naive !  Tramping  through  the  Belgian  Di- 
nant  one  rainy  evening  last  summer,  the  Toast- 
master  halted  in  admiration  before  the  tent  of 

[59] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

some  strolling  French  players,  who  were  win 
ning  a  harvest  at  a  peasants'  fair.  The  buxom 
mother  of  the  family,  perched,  short-skirted 
and  merry-eyed,  upon  a  platform  in  front  of 
the  tent,  harangued  her  audience  of  Ardennes 
peasants  upon  the  merits  of  the  representation 
that  was  about  to  be  given.  The  oldest  boy 
blew  painfully  at  a  bugle,  while  a  younger  boy 
— between  bites  of  an  apple  —  rang  a  brass  bell. 
The  half-grown  daughter  shook  a  tambourine 
coquettishly  under  the  noses  of  the  village 
youth.  The  father  sold  the  admission  tickets. 
And  what  was  the  programme  that  was  pack 
ing  the  tent  with  honest  Ardennes  folk,  at  fif 
teen,  thirty,  and  fifty  centimes  a  head,  according 
to  location  ? 

I.  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  MOSES 

In  Seven  'Tableaux 
Beginning  with  the  Bulrushes 

II.  THE  Sioux's  REVENGE 
A  Drama  of  Blood 

III.  THE  SIGHTS  OF  PARIS 
In  Twelve  Tableaux 

[60] 


TURNING  THE  OLD  LEAVES 

In  fact,  the  tent  was  already  full,  and  the 
Toastmaster  reluctantly  turned  up  his  coat- 
collar  against  the  rain,  and  marched  on.  But 
what  editorial  instinct  was  revealed  in  that  va 
ried  catalogue  of  dramatic  delights !  Many  a 
time  has  the  Toastmaster  turned  the  leaves  of 
certain  back  numbers  of  the  Atlantic,  especially 
remembered  for  their  success  or  failure  with 
the  public,  and  tried  to  analyze  the  causes  of 
their  popularity  or  their  neglect.  Yet  it  may 
have  been  time  wasted.  Could  the  Ardennes 
people  have  told  whether  it  was  Moses,  the  Red 
Indian,  or  the  Boulevard  —  or  the  combination 
of  the  three  —  that  lured  their  centimes  from 
their  pockets  ?  Neither  can  the  present-day 
critic  infallibly  decide  whether  it  was  too  many 
— or  not  enough — Bulrushes,  too  much  or  too 
little  of  the  Sioux's  Revenge,  which  made  or 
marred  the  fortunes  of  those  well-remembered 
issues  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

The  one  thing  certain,  among  these  accidents 
of  short-lived  glory  and  short-lived  disap 
pointment,  these  shiftings  of  scene  and  subject, 
and  tactics  altered  from  decade  to  decade,  is 
that  after  all  there  is  something  in  the  Atlantic 
which  does  not  change.  From  the  beginning, 
[61  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

certain  men  have  expressed  in  it  unwaver 
ing  ideals,  an  abiding  vision  of  a  better  United 
States  of  America.  Some  of  these  writers  hap 
pily  survive.  Others,  later-born,  have  instinct 
ively  aligned  themselves  with  them.  No  one 
who  lingers  over  the  rows  of  bound  volumes 
can  fail  to  perceive,  beneath  the  altering  fash 
ions  of  speech,  an  Atlantic  "  body  of  doctrine," 
—  an  interpretation,  at  once  sound  and  fine, 
of  our  American  civilization.  To  this  persistent 
faith  in  the  things  that  are  excellent  is  due  the 
measure  of  permanence  which  the  magazine  has 
won.  "They  pounded  and  we  pounded,"  ex 
plained  the  simple-hearted  Duke  after  Water 
loo,  "but  we  pounded  longest." 


THE  CENTENARY  OF 
HAWTHORNE 


The   Centenary  of 
Hawthorne1 

IN  watching  a  performance  of  Shakespeare's 
most  famous  play,  the  attention  of  the  specta 
tor  is  arrested  by  one  essentially  solitary  figure. 
Surrounded  by  the  personages  of  a  barbaric 
court,  who  eye  him  with  curiosity,  respect,  or 
secret  apprehension,  stands  a  grave  young  man 
garbed  in  black.  His  bearing  is  princely.  Hebe- 
gins  to  speak ;  but  he  veils  deep  ironic  parables 
in  a  tone  of  perfect  deference  and  courtesy.  In 
vain  do  the  king  and  queen  utter  their  resonant 
commonplaces,  and  cast  troubled  glances  at  each 
other.  They  cannot  sound  him.  How  much  does 
the  prince  know?  What  does  he  think?  What 
will  he  do?  He  is  inscrutable. 

As  the  play  runs  its  course,  certain  traits  of 

1  An  address  delivered  at  Bowdoin  College  in  commemo 
ration  of  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  Hawthorne's  birth. 

[65] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Hamlet  become  clear  enough.  He  is  of  melan 
choly  disposition,  and  of  an  intellectual  cast  of 
mind.  He  has  "the  courtier's,  scholar's,  sol 
dier's,  eye,  tongue,  sword."  He  has  won  the 
friendship  of  a  man  and  the  love  of  a  woman. 
He  possesses  an  exquisite  humor,and  delights  in 
talk.  He  is  reverent ;  believing  in  the  powers  of 
good,  and  fearing  the  powers  of  evil.  He  has  a 
restless  intelligence  which  probes  into  the  secret 
places  of  human  life.  He  broods  over  man's 
mortality,  and  plays  with  it  imaginatively.  He 
has  infirmities  of  will,  yet  there  is  in  him  some 
thing  dangerous,  which  on  occasion  sweeps  all 
before  him.  For  the  space  of  some  three  hours 
we  can  observe  this  creation  of  Shakespeare 
play  his  part, — listening,  planning,  conversing, 
avenging,  dying.  Yet  no  one  has  ever  plucked 
out  the  heart  of  his  mystery.  No  actor  or  critic 
or  lonely  reader  has  ever  been  able  to  pronounce 
to  us,  indubitably  and  without  fear  of  contradic 
tion,  what  manner  of  man  this  Hamlet  really  is. 
In  the  best-known  and  best-loved  circle  of 
our  American  writers  there  is  likewise  one  figure 
who  stands  in  a  sort  of  involuntary  isolation. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne  had,  indeed,  warm  and 
faithful  friends.  His  affectionate  family  have 
[66] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

loved  to  dwell  upon  the  details  of  his  domestic 
life.  He  moved  as  an  equal  among  a  few  of  the 
best  spirits  of  his  time.  The  impression  he  made 
upon  them  may  be  traced  in  the  journals  of 
Longfellow  and  Emerson,  the  letters  of  Brown 
ing  and  Story  and  Lowell,  the  recollections  of 
Bridge  and  Fields.  His  writings  have  been  ana 
lyzed  by  accomplished  critics.  He  was  himself 
a  diarist  of  extraordinary  minuteness  and  pre 
cision,  and,  thanks  to  his  own  descriptions,  we 
can  still  see  him  sitting  with  the  tavern-haunters 
of  North  Adams,  with  the  "  defiant  Democrats  " 
in  the  Salem  Custom  House,  with  the  blame 
less  sea-captains  in  Mrs.  Blodgett's  boarding- 
house  in  Liverpool ;  we  can  stand  by  his  side 
in  the  art-galleries  of  Florence  and  the  studios 
of  Rome.  He  died  but  forty  years  ago,  and  many 
living  men  and  women  remember  him  with 
strange  vividness.  Yet  he  remains,  after  all,  a 
man  apart.  Mystery  gathers  about  him,  even 
while  the  annalists  and  the  critics  are  striving 
to  make  his  portrait  clear. 

Certain  characteristics  of  Hawthorne  are  of 
course  indisputable,  and  it  is  not  fantastic  to  add 
that  some  of  these  qualities  bear  a  curious  re 
semblance  to  those  of  that  very  Prince  of  Den- 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

mark  who  seems  more  real  to  us  than  do  most 
living  men.  Hawthorne  was  a  gentleman;  in 
body  the  mould  of  form,  and  graced  with  a  noble 
mind.  Like  Hamlet,  he  loved  to  discourse  with 
unlettered  people,  with  wandering  artists,  with 
local  humorists,  although  without  ever  losing 
his  own  dignity  and  inviolable  reserve.  He  had 
irony  for  the  pretentious,  kindness  for  the  sim 
ple-hearted,  merciless  wit  for  the  fools.  He  liked 
to  speculate  about  men  and  women,  about  temp 
tation  and  sin  and  punishment;  but  he  remained, 
like  Hamlet,  clear-sighted  enough  to  distin 
guish  between  the  thing  in  itself  and  the  thing 
as  it  appeared  to  him  in  his  solitude  and  melan 
choly.  His  closest  friends,  like  Horatio  Bridge 
and  W.  D.  Ticknor,  were  men  of  marked  justice 
andsanity  of  mind, — of  the  true  Horatio  type. 
Hawthorne  was  capable,  if  need  be,  of  passion 
ate  and  swift  action,  for  all  his  gentleness  and  ex 
quisite  courtesy  of  demeanor.  Toward  the  last 
he  had, like  Hamlet,  his  forebodings,  —  "such 
a  kind  of  gain-giving,  as  would  perhaps  trouble 
a  woman  ";  and  he  died,  like  Hamlet,  in  silence, 
conscious  of  an  unfinished  task. 

We  celebrate,  in  this  summer  time,  the  cen 
tenary  of  Hawthorne's  birth.  It  is  possible  to 
[68] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

understand  him,  in  relation  to  his  generation, 
better  than  he  was  understood  in  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  though  we  can  scarcely 
praise  him  more  generously  than  did  those  few 
contemporaries  who,  like  Poe,  made  adequate 
recognition  of  his  genius.  If  we  cannot  penetrate 
to  the  heart  of  his  mystery,  we  can  nevertheless 
perceive  the  nature  of  it.  Critics  will  long  con 
tinue  to  assess  the  precise  value  of  his  contribu 
tions  to  literature,  and  to  assign  his  place  in  the  de 
velopment  of  his  chosen  art  of  romance-writing. 
But  we  who  are  gathered  in  his  honor  at  the  col 
lege  of  his  choice  may  leave  to  the  specialists  the 
discussion  of  this  and  that  detail  of  his  crafts 
manship.  In  a  world  where  literary  values,  and 
the  very  basis  of  literaryjudgments,  shift  as  they 
seem  to  be  shifting  in  our  contemporary  civil 
ization,  it  is  impossible  to  predict  what  Haw 
thorne's  popular  rankwill  be  in  another  hundred 
years.  But  we  can  at  least  say  why  two  genera 
tions  of  Americans  have  respected  Hawthorne's 
character  and  admired  his  writings.  We  can  draw 
once  more  in  memory  the  outward  features  of 
the  man,  and,  before  they  fade  again  into  the 
shadow,  may  assert  our  own  faith  in  the  endur 
ing  significance  of  his  work. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

No  glimpse  of  Hawthorne,  at  any  period  of 
his  career,  is  without  charm ;  yet  a  peculiar  fas 
cination  attaches  to  those  pictures  of  the  hand 
some,  brooding,  impenetrable  boy  which  have 
been  sketched,  in  lines  all  too  few,  by  his  college 
classmates.  Here  in  a  rustic  school  of  learning, 
on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness,  our  student  found 
his  Wittenberg.  His  contact  with  books  had 
been  that  of  the  well-bred  New  England  lad  of 
a  day  when  books  were  still  respected.  He  had 
had  free  choice  among  them,  and  had  read,  be 
fore  he  was  fourteen,  Rousseau  and  the  "  New 
gate  Calendar,"  while  the  first  book  purchased 
with  his  own  money  was  Spenser's  "Faerie 
Queene."  Butunder  the  Brunswick  pines  he  was 
to  find  a  better  thing  than  books:  namely,  friend 
ship.  When  Hawthorne  matriculated  in  1821, 
Bowdoin  College  had  had  but  nineteen  years  of 
struggling  life.  There  were  a  handful  of  profes 
sors  and  slightly  more  than  a  hundred  students. 
Yet  the  place  already  had  character,  and  it  some 
how  bred  aspiration.  It  is  a  suggestive  coinci 
dence,  that  in  sketching  Bowdoin  College  under 
an  assumed  name  in  his  first  book,  "Fanshawe," 
Hawthorne  pictures  his  academic  hero  as  mas 
tered  by  the  "  dream  of  undying  fame  ";  and  that 

[70] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

fifty  years  later,  when  his  classmate  Longfellow 
described  the  college  of  his  youth  in  the  noble 
"  Morituri  Salutamus,"  it  was  in  the  words, — 

Ye  halls,  in  whose  seclusion  and  repose 
Phantoms  of  fame,  like  exhalations,  rose. 

To  many  of  those  dreaming  youths,  fame,  of 
various  degrees,  became  a  reality.  In  Haw 
thorne's  class  were  Longfellow,  Cheever,  Ab 
bott,  and  Cilley ;  among  his  college  mates  were 
the  highly  honored  names  of  Appleton,  Bell, 
Fessenden,  Pierce,  Stowe,  Prentiss,  Hale. 
Among  such  ambitious  companions,  the  shy 
young  Hawthorne  held  quietly  to  his  own  path. 
He  seems  to  have  liked  the  plain,  country-bred 
lads  better  than  the  sons  of  wealth  and  social 
opportunity;  he  belonged  to  the  more  demo 
cratic  of  the  two  literary  societies.  The  scanty 
records  of  his  undergraduate  life  tell  us  some 
thing  of  him,  although  not  much:  he  rooms  in 
Maine  Hall,  he  boards  at  Mrs.  Dunning's,  he 
is  fined  for  card-playing,  refuses  to  declaim, 
writes  better  Latin  and  English  prose  than  the 
others,  —  but  that  is  about  all.  One  trait  is, 
indeed,  marked,  and  it  is  a  wholesome  one: 
namely,  tenacity  of  friendship,  —  quite  consist 
ent  with  a  certain  cool,  obstinate  independence. 

[71  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Nearly  forty  years  after  graduation  Hawthorne 
dedicated  a  book,  "  Our  Old  Home,"  to  his 
college  friend  Franklin  Pierce,  who  had  become 
in  1863  extremely  unpopular  at  the  North.  His 
publishers,  with  professional  caution,  advised 
Hawthorne  not  to  ruin  the  chances  of  his  book 
by  dedicating  it  to  the  discredited  ex- President. 
WhereuponHawthorne  wrote  to  them, in  words 
that  should  be  dear  to  all  who  believe  in  the  vi 
tality  of  college  attachments  :  — 

"  I  find  that  it  would  be  a  piece  of  poltroon 
ery  in  me  to  withdraw  either  the  dedication  or 
the  dedicatory  letter.  My  long  and  intimate  re 
lations  with  Pierce  render  the  dedication  alto 
gether  proper,  especially  as  regards  this  book, 
which  would  have  had  no  existence  without  his 
kindness ;  and  if  he  is  so  exceedingly  unpopu 
lar  that  his  name  is  enough  to  sink  the  volume, 
there  is  so  much  the  more  need  that  an  old  friend 
should  stand  by  him.  I  cannot,  merely  on  ac 
count  of  pecuniary  profit  or  literary  reputation, 
go  back  from  what  I  have  deliberately  thought 
and  felt  it  right  to  do ;  and  if  I  were  to  tear  out 
the  dedication,  I  should  never  look  at  the  vol 
ume  again  without  remorse  and  shame." 

Although  the  young  Hawthorne  came  no 

[73] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

nearer  winning  academic  distinction  than  Low 
ell  or  Thackeray,  his  college  career  betrays 
everywhere  this  steady  insistence  upon  what  he 
deliberately  thought  and  felt  it  right  to  do.  He 
had  his  own  inner  life,  and  if  Bowdoin  did  not 
impart  to  him  all  the  manifold  intellectual  and 
spiritual  culture  which  an  old-world  university 
in  theory  possesses,  he  found  there  freedom, 
health,  and  a  few  men  to  love.  One  at  least  of 
these  friends  perceived  the  genius  which  was  la 
tent  in  the  dark-haired,  keen-eyed,  rosy-cheeked 
boy,  so  reticent,  so  obstinate,  so  loyal.  The  clair 
voyant  was  his  classmate  Bridge.  In  the  pre 
face  to  the  "  Snow  Image"  Hawthorne  wrote, 
in  sentences  that  every  Bowdoin  man  perhaps 
knows  by  heart,  yet  so  winning  in  their  senti 
ment  and  phrase  that  they  tempt  quotation :  — 
"  If  anybody  is  responsible  for  my  being  at 
this  day  an  author,  it  is  yourself.  I  know  not 
whence  your  faith  came ;  but,  while  we  were  lads 
together  at  a  country  college, — gathering  blue 
berries,  in  study-hours,  under  those  tall  aca 
demic  vines;  or  watching  the  great  logs,  as  they 
tumbled  along  the  current  of  the  Androscoggin; 
or  shooting  pigeons  and  gray  squirrels  in  the 
woods;  or  bat-fowling  in  the  summer  twilight; 

[73] 


i 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

or  catching  trouts  in  that  shadowy  little  stream 
which,  I  suppose,  is  still  wandering  riverward 
through  the  forest,  —  though  you  and  I  will 
never  cast  a  line  in  it  again,  —  two  idle  lads,  in 
short,  doing  a  hundred  things  that  the  Faculty 
never  heard  of,  or  else  it  had  been  the  worse 
for  us,  —  still,  it  was  your  prognostic  of  your 
friend's  destiny,  that  he  was  to  be  a  writer  of 
fiction." 

But  what  sort  of  writer  of  fiction?  Many 
elements  contribute  to  the  answer  to  that  ques 
tion.  There  are  lines  of  literary  inheritance  to 
be  reckoned  with;  influences  of  race  and  na 
tionality  and  epoch  play  their  part.  But  of  all 
the  factors  that  shaped  Hawthorne's  career  as 
a  writer,  Salem  inevitably  comes  first.  Back  to 
that  weather-beaten,  decrepit  seaport  Haw 
thorne  returned  when  the  bright  college  days 
were  over.  The  gray  mist  of  the  place  settles 
about  him  and  gathers  within  him,  and  for  a 
dozen  years  one  can  scarcely  tell  whether  he 
is  man  or  spectre.  AU-±haf  is  r^rtajn  js  that 
he  is  jlone.  His  classmates  fare  forth  eagerly 
into  law,  politics,  business.  But  Hawthorne 
has  no  taste  for  any  of  the  professions.  He 
lingers  on  in  Salem,  sharing  the  scanty  income 

[74] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

of  his  mother  and  sisters,  reading  desultory 
books,  taking  long  nocturnal  and  daytime  ram 
bles,  brooding,  dreaming,  and  trying  to  learn 
in  his  dismal  chamber  to  write  stories  about 
human  life. 

Many  years  later  he  penned  this  pathetic 
fragment  of  autobiography  :  — 

"  For  a  long,  long  while  I  have  been  occa 
sionally  visited  with  a  singular  dream ;  and  I 
have  an  impression  that  I  have  dreamed  it  ever 
since  I  have  been  in  England.  It  is,  that  I  am 
still  at  college,  —  or, sometimes,  even  at  school, 
—  and  there  is  a  sense  that  I  have  been  there 
unconscionably  long,  and  have  quite  failed  to 
make  such  progress  as  my  contemporaries  have 
done;  and  I  seem  to  meet  some  of  them  with 
a  feeling  of  shame  and  depression  that  broods 
over  me  as  I  think  of  it,  even  when  awake. 
This  dream,  recurring  all  through  these  twenty 
or  thirty  years,  must  be  one  of  the  effects  of 
that  heavy  seclusion  in  which  I  shut  myself  up 
after  leaving  college,  when  everybody  moved 
onward  and  left  me  behind." 

Such  tragedies,  unrelieved  by  any  later  victo 
ries  of  the  spirit,  are  familiar  enough  to  college 
men.  As  the  roll  is  called  at  their  reunions, 

[75] 


OF  THE     " 

UNIVERSITY 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

there  will  always  be  here  and  there  a  name, 
once  rich  in  promise,  of  some  man  who  has 
"gone  to  seed."  The  sojourn  of  Hawthorne 
in  Salem  is  an  old  story  now.  Nothing  new  is 
to  be  added  to  the  record  of  morbid  physical 
isolation  and  of  intellectual  solitude.  Set  those 
twelve  years  over  against  the  corresponding 
twelve  in  the  life  of  Scott,  Balzac,  Dickens, 
Turgenieff,  and  they  have  a  ghostly  pallor. 
True,  Hawthorne's  separation  from  the  world 
preserved  him  from  those  distractions  which 
often  dissipate  the  powers  of  the  artist.  He 
kept,  as  he  said,  the  dew  of  his  youth  and  the 
freshness  of  his  heart.  His  unbroken  leisure 
left  him  free  to  ponder  upon  a  few  permanent 
objects  of  meditation,  and  no  one  can  say  how 
much  his  romances  may  not  have  gained  thereby 
in  depth  of  tone  and  concentration  of  inten 
tion. 

Yet  the  plain  fact  remains  that  he  hated  his 
self-imposed  prison,  even  while  he  lacked  vigor 
to  escape  from  it.  "  There  is  no  fate  in  the 
world  so  horrible  as  to  have  no  share  in  either 
its  joys  or  its  sorrows";  thus  he  writes  in  1837 
to  Longfellow,  who  had  already  made  a  career 
and  tasted  deep  of  both  sorrow  and  joy.  And 

[76] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

Hawthorne's  sombre  seclusion  was  affecting 
his  nascent  art  as  well  as  his  life.  "  I  have  an 
other  great  difficulty/'  he  adds  to  Longfellow, 
"in  the  lack  of  materials;  for  I  have  seen  so 
little  of  the  world  that  I  have  nothing  but  thin 
air  to  concoct  my  stories  of."  Strip  the  veil  of 
romantic  mystery  from  these  Salem  years,  and 
they  show  their  sinister  significance.  It  was  an 
abnormal,  melancholy  existence,  which  sapped 
Hawthorne's  physical  vitality  and  left  its  twi 
light  upon  his  soul  and  upon  the  beautiful 
pages  of  his  books. 

The  artistic  record  of  that  period  is  pre 
served  in  "Twice-Told  Tales,"  a  collection  of 
some  twoscore  stones,  none  of  which,  on  their 
first  publication,  had  been  signed  with  the  au 
thor's  name.  Hawthorne  said  of  them  after 
ward, —  and  it  is  the  final  word  of  criticism  as 
well  as  a  confession  of  his  way  of  life  while  com 
posing  them,  —  "They  have  the  pale  tint  of 
flowers  that  blossomed  in  too  retired  a  shade." 

Nevertheless  the  flowers  did  blossom  in  spite 
of  all.  The  soil  would  have  been  better  had  it 
been  enriched  and  watered,  yet  it  was  Haw 
thorne's  native  soil.  For  two  hundred  years  his 
ancestors  had  trodden  the  Salem  streets;  they 

[77] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

had  gone  to  sea,  had  persecuted  the  witches, 
had  whipped  Quaker  women,  had  helped  to 
build  a  commonwealth.  He  had  no  particular 

"pride  in  them  or  love  for  them,  but  he  could 
.not  escape  the  bond  of  kinship.  Toward  the 
more  hospitable  and  cultivated  aspects  of  Salem 
society  in  his  own  day, — the  Salem  of  the  Pick 
erings  and  Saltonstalls  and  Storys,  —  toward 
the  dignity  and  beauty  that  still  clothe  the 
stately  houses  of  Chestnut  Street,  Hawthorne 
remained  indifferent.  His  imagination  homed 
back  to  the  superstition-burdened  past,  with 

/ts  dark  enthusiasms,  its  stern  sense  of  law. 
Open  the  mouldering  folio  of  Cotton  Mather's 
"  Magnalia  "  and  you  will  discover  the  men  and 
the  scenes  that  haunted  Hawthorne's  mind  as 
he  sat  in  his  dusky  chamber  writing  tales. 

He  practiced  himself  also,  with  unwearied 
patience,  in  reporting  the  trivial  incidents  of 
the  life  around  him,  until  he  had  developed  a 
descriptive  style  marked  by  exceptional  phy- 

'  sical  accuracy,  and  yet  subtly  suggestive,  too. 
Listen  to  this  lonely  and  as  yet  scarcely  recog 
nized  man  of  letters,  as  he  gives  counsel  in 
1843  to  ms  friend  Horatio  Bridge,  who  had 
also  taken  his  pen  in  hand:  — 

[78] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

"  Begin  to  write  always  before  the  impression 
of  novelty  has  worn  off  from  your  mind,  else 
you  will  be  apt  to  think  that  the  peculiarities 
which  at  first  attracted  you  are  not  worth  re 
cording;  yet  these  slight  peculiarities  are  the 
very  things  that  make  the  most  vivid  impres 
sion  upon  the  reader.  Think  nothing  too  tri 
fling  to  set  down,  so  it  be  in  the  smallest  de 
gree  characteristic.  You  will  be  surprised  to 
find  on  re-perusing  your  journal  what  an  im 
portance  and  graphic  power  these  little  particu 
lars  assume." 

This  is  the  assured  tone  of  the  finished 
craftsman.  And  he  is  careful  to  add :  "  I  would 
advise  you  not  to  stick  too  accurately  to  the 
bare  fact,  either  in  your  descriptions  or  your 
narrative;  else  your  hand  will  be  cramped  and 
the  result  will  be  a  want  of  freedom  that  will 
deprive  you  of  a  higher  truth  than  that  which 
you  strive  to  attain." 

Pale  blossoms,  indeed,  are  many  of  these 
earlier  stories,  yet  genius  was  stirring  at  their 
root,  and  their  growth  was  guided  by  a  hand 
that  already  distinguished  between  the  lower 
truth  of  fact  and  the  higher  truth  of  imagina 
tion.  Sunshine  was  all  that  was  needed,  and 

[79  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

by  and  by,  though  tardily,  the  sunshine  came. 
Hawthorne  falls  in  love;  he  craves  and  finds 
contact  with  "the  material  world ";  he  goes  to 
work  in  the  Boston  Custom  House;  he  makes 
investment  of  money  and  cooperation  at  Brook 
Farm,  where  his  handsome  figure  and  quizzical 
smile  seem  almost  substantial  now,  among  the 
ghosts  of  once  eager  reformers  that  flit  about 
that  deserted  hillside.  He  marries  a  charming 
woman,  and  lives  with  her  in  the  Old  Manse 
at  Concord  for  four  years  of  idyllic  happiness. 
He  publishes  a  new  collection  of  tales,  marked 
by  originality  of  conception,  a  delicate  sense  of 
form,  and  deep  moral  significance.  He  goes 
picnicking  with  politicians,  too,  and  gets  ap 
pointed  surveyor  of  the  port  of  Salem.  He  is 
doing  a  man's  work  in  the  world  now,  and  in 
spite  of  some  humorous  grumbling  and  the 
neglect  of  his  true  calling,  takes  a  manly  satis 
faction  in  it.  But  partisan  politics  rarely  did 
America  a  better  service  than  in  1849,  when 
the  Whig  administration  at  Washington  threw 
Hawthorne  out  of  office.  He  soon  steadied 
himself  under  the  bitter  blow,  —  writing  to 
George  S.  Hillard,  "I  have  come  to  feel  that 
it  is  not  good  for  me  to  be  here.  I  am  in  a 

[80] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

lower  moral  state  than  I  have  been, — a  duller 
intellectual  one.  So  let  me  go ;  and  under  God's 
providence,  I  shall  arrive  at  something  better." 
His  admirable  wife  was — womanlike — more 
concrete.  When  he  told  her  that  he  had  been 
superseded,  she  exclaimed,  "Oh,  then  you  can 
write  your  book!" 

This  book,  as  every  one  knows,  was  the 
"  Scarlet  Letter,"  that  incomparable  master-' 
piece  of  American  fiction,  which  has  long  since 
taken  its  place  among  the  great  literature  of  the 
world.  The  boyish  dream  of  Fame,  analyzed 
in  so  many  exquisite  parables  during  his  weary 
years  of  waiting,  had  at  last  come  true  for  him. 
He  was  too  unworldly  to  value  it  over-much, 
but  he  took  a  quiet  pleasure  in  his  success,  with 
out  losing  his  cool,  detached  attitude  toward 
his  own  creations.  "  Some  parts  of  the  c  Scarlet 
Letter/  "  he  pronounces,  "are  powerfully  writ 
ten."  His  long  apprenticeship  in  one  of  the 
most  exacting  fields  of  literary  composition  was 
over.  He  was  forty-six;  and  he  had  but  four 
teen  more  years  to  live.  The  first  two  of  these 
were  the  most  rich  in  production,  for  they 
brought  forth  the  "House  of  the  Seven  Ga 
bles,"  that  well-nigh  faultless  romance  of  Old 
[81  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Salem;  the  beautiful  "Wonder-Book,"  written 
in  six  weeks,  with  marvelous  technical  mastery 
of  a  difficult  genre  of  literature;  and,  finally,  the 
shrewd,  ironical,  surprisingly  novel  handling 
of  his  Brook  Farm  material,  the  "  Blithedale 
Romance." 

When  Hawthorne  accepted  the  Liverpool 
consulship  in  1853,  he  was  already,  what  he 
has  ever  since  remained,  the  foremost  of  our 
fiction  writers.  His  extended  sojourn  abroad 
illuminated  his  mind  in  many  ways,  but  it  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  have  contributed  new  ele 
ments  to  his  art.  It  brought  him  again  into 
contact  with  executive  duties,  always  scrupu 
lously  fulfilled ;  with  new  types  of  men  and 
new  scenes ;  and  with  a  whole  world  of  pictorial 
and  plastic  art,  hitherto  undreamed  of.  The 
record  of  it  may  be  read  in  his  laborious  note 
books  and  in  one  profoundly  imaginative  ro 
mance.  But  Hawthorne's  spiritual  commerce 
with  Europe  came,  on  the  whole,  too  late ;  both 
in  England  and  Italy  he  remained  the  observ 
ant  alien.  One  likes  him  none  the  less  for  a 
certain  sturdy  provinciality,  —  a  touch  even, 
here  and  there,  of  honest  Philistinism.  But  one 
misses,  in  the  records  of  these  later  years,  the 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

spontaneity,  the  vigor,  the  penetration,  which 
marked  the  more  fragmentary  "American  Note- 
Books."  The  unseen  springs  of  vitality  in  him 
were  beginning  to  fail;  the  shadows,  dispersed 
by  many  a  year  of  happiness,  were  beginning 
to  close  in  once  more.  Longfellow  notes  in  his 
diary,  March  i,  1860:  "A  soft  rain  falling  all 
day  long,  and  all  day  long  I  read  the  c  Marble 
Faun/  A  wonderful  book;  but  with  the  old 
dull  pain  in  it  that  runs  through  all  of  Haw 
thorne's  writings." 

It  was  in  that  year  that  the  romancer  re 
turned  home,  and  settled  at  the  Wayside  in 
Concord.  War-time  was  nearing.  Hawthorne, 
never  an  eager  politician  in  any  cause,  was  per 
plexed  about  his  country,  gloomy  about  him 
self.  He  wrote  indeed,  with  his  customary  skill 
of  surface  composition,  upon  a  new  romance 
whose  theme  was  the  elixir  of  immortality.  "I 
have  a  notion,"  he  writes  to  Longfellow, "that 
the  last  book  will  be  my  best,  and  full  of  wis 
dom  about  matters  of  life  and  death."  But  it 
was  fitful,  despairing  work,  without  unity  of 
architecture.  He  sketched  it  now  under  one 
title,  now  under  another.  At  last  he  prepared 
the  opening  chapter  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 

[83] 


A 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

but  in  May,  1864,  the  unfinished  manuscript 
rested  upon  his  coffin.  And  so  there  passes 
from  sight  our  New  England  Hamlet,  with  his 
grave  beauty,  his  rich,  mournful  accents,  his 
half-told  wisdom  about  matters  of  life  and 
death. 

Yet  not  in  these  events  of  his  outward  career, 
natural  as  it  is  to  recall  them  now,  but  in  the 
peculiar  processes  of  his  creative  activity,  shall 
we  find,  if  at  all,  the  secret  of  that  power  which 
gives  Hawthorne  his  unique  position  in  our  lit- 
/-erature.  First  among  those  deep  instincts  which 
give  unity  to  his  character  and  his  books,  should 
be  placed  his  choice  of  moral  problems  as  ma 
terial  for  his  art.  For  nearly  half  a  century  we 
have  witnessed  painstaking  endeavors  to  base 
the  art  of  fiction  upon  the  science  of  physiology. 
Men  of  massive  talent  have  wrought  at  such 
books,  but  their  experiments  are  already  crum 
bling'.  And  we  have  had  schools  of  fiction  deal 
ing  with  the  mere  intellect,  registering  the  subtle 
influence  of  mind  upon  mind,  and  the  open 
struggle  of  mind  with  mind,  or  playing  with  ex 
traordinary  cleverness  upon  the  surface  of  mo 
tives,  while  ignoring  a  whole  world  of  profound 
emotions.  But  the  greatest  masters  of  English 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

fiction  have  never  forgotten  that  man  has  a  con- 
science.  The  novelist  who  ignores  the  moral  and 
spiritual  nature  abandons  the  very  field  of  fie1 
tion  where  the  highest  triumphs  have  been  won.j 
There  is  a  word  to  describe  this  field, — a  word 
broader  than  either  "  mind  "  or  "conscience/* 
and  inclusive  both  of  mental  processes  and  spir 
itual  perceptions.  It  is  the  word  "heart." 

In  the  "Blithedale  Romance,"  Westervelt, 
the  embodiment  of  intellectual  acuteness,  is  per 
plexed  and  irritated  to  find  that  Zenobia  has 
drowned  herself.  He  cannot  grasp  her  motive. 
"  Her  mind  was  active  and  various  in  its  pow 
ers,"  said  he.  "  She  had  life's  summer  all  before 
her,  and  a  hundred  varieties  of  brilliant  success. 
How  forcibly  she  might  have  wrought  upon  the 
world !  Every  prize  that  could  be  worth  a  wo 
man's  having — and  many  prizes  which  other 
women  are  too  timid  to  desire — lay  within  Ze- 
nobia's  reach."  Then,  in  a  note  that  Hawthorne 
touches  quietly,  but  unerringly,  Miles  Cover- 
dale  answers  :  "  In  all  this,  there  would  have 
been  nothing  to  satisfy  her  heart."  Even  the 
romance-writer,  according  to  Hawthorne's  own 
dictum," sins unpardonably  as  far  as  he  swerves 
aside  from  the  truth  of  the  human  heart." 

[85] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

To  interpret  that  truth  was  his  artistic  task. 
He  was  haunted  by  moral  problems.  The  ex 
traordinary  fragment, "  Ethan  Brand,"  is  an  at 
tempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  development 
of  the  intellect  at  the  expense  of  the  soul.  In 
"  Rappaccini's  Daughter"  the  father's  love  of 
scientific  experiment  overmasters  his  love  for 
his  child.  In  the  "Christmas  Banquet  "we  have 
a  man  who  misses  the  secret  that  gives  substance 
to  a  world  of  shadows.  The  "  Scarlet  Letter  "  is 

study  of  the  workings  of  conscience  after  a 
committed  crime ;  the  "  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables  "  is  devoted  to  the  legacy  of  ancestral 
guilt  and  its  mediation  ;  the  "  Marble  Faun  " 
to  the  influence  of  a  sin  upon  the  development 
of  character. 

Why  did  Hawthorne's  imagination  fasten 
upon  subjects  like  these?  It  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  he  wrote  under  the  influence  of  Puri 
tanism.  Too  much  has  been  made,  by  his  critics, 
of  such  phrases  as  cc  Puritan  gloom  "  and  "  the 
morbid  New  England  conscience."  It  is  true 
that  Hawthorne  inherited  from  Puritan  ances 
tors  a  certain  tenseness  of  fibre,  a  sensitiveness 
of  conscience,  a  conviction  of  the  reality  of 
the  moral  life.  It  is  also  true  that  he  was  in- 
[  86] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

tensely  interested  in  Puritanism  as  an  historic 
phenomenon.  It  gave  him  the  material  he 
needed.  How  thoroughly  he  apprehended  both 
the  spirit  and  the  outward  form  of  life  in  early 
New  England  is  evidenced  by  his  "  Legends  of 
the  Province  House/'  "Goodman Brown," the 
"Gentle  Boy,"  the  "Minister's  Black  Veil." 
:  Yet  neither  his  inheritance  in  Puritanism  nor  his 
profound  study  of  it  is  enough  to  account  satis 
factorily  for  his  choice  of  themes  for  his  stories.) 
Judged  by  his  reading,  by  his  friends  and  asso 
ciations,  by  the  spiritual  emancipation  which 
was  already  liberalizing  New  England  when  he 

began  to  write,  hpwag  Transrp^^pnfalisf  rather 

.than  Puritan.  Puritan  theology,  as  such,  had  no 
hold  upon  him  personally;  he  was  not  even  a 
church-goer.  One  can  only  say  that  he  was 
drawn  to  moral  problems  by  the  natural  gravi 
tation  of  his  own  mind,  just  as  Newman  was 
inevitably  attracted  to  theology,  or  Darwin  to 
science.  From  the  days  of  Job  to  the  day  of 
Ibsen  and  Maeterlinck  there  has  been  here  and 
there  a  person  able  to  find  in  the  moral  nature 
of  man  material  for  the  creative  imagination. 
Hawthorne  was  one  of  these  persons;  he  was 
nurtured  by  Puritanism  but  not  created  by  it. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  habit  of  his 
mind  is  found  in  the  introduction  to  his  "Mosses 
from  an  Old  Manse,"  where  he  repeats  a  story 
of  the  Concord  fight,  which  had  been  told  to  him 
by  Lowell.  On  that  famous  April  morning,  a 
youth  who  had  been  chopping  wood  for  the 
Concord  minister  was  drawn  by  curiosity  to  the 
battlefield,  the  axe  still  in  his  hand.  He  en 
countered  a  wounded  British  soldier,  and  in  a 
nervous  impulse  of  momentary  terror  dealt  him 
a  fatal  blow.  "  The  story,"  says  Hawthorne, 
"comes  home  to  me  like  truth.  Oftentimes,  as 
an  intellectual  and  moral  exercise,!  have  sought 
to  follow  that  poor  youth  through  his  subse 
quent  career,  and  observe  how  his  soul  was 
tortured  by  the  blood  stain,  contracted  as  it  had 
been  before  the  long  custom  of  war  had  robbed 
human  life  of  its  sanctity,  and  while  it  still 
seemed  murderous  to  slay  a  brother  man.  That 
one  circumstance  has  borne  more  fruit  for  me 
than  all  that  history  tells  us  of  the  fight."  Ob 
serve  that  Hawthorne  finds  "an  intellectual  and 
moral  exercise"  in  brooding  over  the  question 
of  the  young  man's  responsibility.  This  may  be 
called,  if  one  pleases,  the  working  of  the  morbid 
Puritan  conscience.  But  it  is  also  the  very  stuff 
[88  ] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

out  of  which  Greek  tragedy  is  woven.  It  is  the 
same  brooding  that  is  back  of  "Othello  "  and 
"  Macbeth."  "  England  is  not  the  world,"  says 
an  old  courtier  in  one  of  Schiller's  plays.  New 
England  has  no  monoply  of  the  conscience. 

The  present  generation  has  grown  some 
what  impatient  of  all  analysis  of  that  tragic  guilt 
which  our  weak  humanity  may  so  easily  incur. 
No  doubt  it  is  no  very  cheerful  occupation.  The 
anatomist  of  the  heart  develops  a  professional 
instinct  for  morbid  pathology ;  he  forsakes,  per 
haps  too  often,  the  normal  organ  for  the  ab 
normal.  In  his  search  for  motives,  it  is  easy  for 
him  to  fall  into  casuistry;  to  impute  guilt  where 
there  is  none  ;  to  discover  moral  pitfalls  where 
the  ground  is  really  smooth.  It  is  with  real  satis 
faction,  with  a  positive  glee,  that  Browning's 
monk  in  the  "Spanish  Cloister"  cries, — 

"  There  's  a  great  text  in  Galatians, 

Once  you  trip  on  it,  entails 

Twenty-nine  distinct  damnations, 

One  sure,  if  another  fails." 

Solitude  is  a  prolific  breeder  of  fancies  like  these. 
Over  the  windows  of  the  romancer's  lonely 
study,  as  of  the  monk's  cell,  the  cobwebs  may 
gather  till  the  whole  sky  seems  darkened.  But 

[89] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

there  is  other  darkness,  too,  terribly  real.  "  I  do 
not  see  any  sin  in  the  world,"  said  Hawthorne's 
brilliant  contemporary,  George  Sand,  "but  I 
see  a  great  deal  of  ignorance."  Not  so  with  his 
profounder  insight.  The  presence  of  evil  in  the 
human  heart,  palpable,  like  that  gross  darkness 
which  could  be  touched,  was  one  of  the  axioms 
of  his  thinking.  Without  it,  he  would  have  been 
but  a  sacrilegious  juggler. 

The  solitariness  of  Hawthorne's  life,  partic 
ularly  in  its  formative  years,  united  with  a  habit 
of  ruminating  over  his  work  to  determine  in 
some  measure  the  character  of  his  themes.  His 
note-books,  which  have  never  been  adequately 
studied  in  their  relation  to  his  finished  stories, 
are  filled  with  random  suggestions.  But  the 
purely  fanciful  themes  were  for  the  most  part  si 
lently  discarded  ;  those  that  really  bore  fruit  are 
the  imaginative  ones.  To  this  long  brooding 
of  a  fertile  mind  over  an  apparently  insignificant 
symbol  we  are  indebted  for  the  rarest  produc 
tions  of  Hawthorne's  genius.  To  take  the  most 
familiar  example,  it  was  in  his  tale  of"  Endicott 
and  the  Red  Cross  "  that  he  first  described  "a 
young  woman  with  no  mean  share  of  beauty, 
whose  doom  it  was  to  wear  the  letter  A,  em- 

[90] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

broidered  in  scarlet  cloth,  on  the  breast  of  her 
gown."  M  iss  Elizabeth  Peabody  said  promptly, 
"  We  shall  hear  of  that  letter  by  and  by  " ; — and 
year  after  year  that  bit  of  embroidery  glowed 
in  the  cloudy  depths  of  Hawthorne's  mind, 
until,  when  he  drew  it  forth,  it  had  become  one 
of  the  master  conceptions  of  the  world's  fiction. 
In  similar  fashion  we  can  discover  how  the 
germs  of  the  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  "  and 
the  "  Marble  Faun  "  were  rooted,  like  vagrant 
truths,  in  the  soil  of  that  fertile  imagination. 

Yet  a  mind  of  this  strange  retentiveness  — 
almost  secretiveness  —  has,  with  all  its  fertility, 
certain  defects.  Some  ideas  committed  to  it  be 
come  refined,  over-refined,  refined  away.  Sym 
bolism,  always  a  mode  of  art  congenial  to  Haw 
thorne,  is  sometimes  allowed  to  take  the  place 
of  expression.  The  individual  loses  color  and 
precision  of  outline,  and  becomes  a  mere  type. 
Hawthorne's  imagination  seldom  misled  him ; 
it  had  the  inevitableness  of  genius.  But  his 
fancy,  playing  upon  superficial  resemblances, 
sporting  with  trivial  objects,  was  his  besetting 
weakness  as  a  writer.  It  is  none  the  less  a  weak 
ness  because  it  first  drew  public  attention  to 
him,  or  because  it  is  in  itself  exquisite.  Deli- 

[91  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

cate  and  lovely  as  his  fancies  were,  Hawthorne 
often  played  with  them  too  long.  He  over- 
elaborated  them  ;  he  painted  his  lily  instead  of 
letting  it  alone.  It  is  true  that  as  he  advanced 
in  life  there  is  less  and  less  of  this.  Contact  with 
the  world,  with  real  joys  and  sorrows,  deepened 
his  insight,  and  dispelled  some  of  the  pretty, 
playful,  soap-bubble  allegories  with  which  his 
more  idle  and  solitary  hours  had  been  too  often 
filled.  He  might  have  stayed  in  Salem  and  de 
scribed  Town  Pumps  and  invented  Celestial 
Railroads  to  the  end  of  his  days  without  draw 
ing  any  nearer  to  the  "Scarlet  Letter."  But 
little  by  little  his  powers  were  directed  upon 
adequate  objects;  his  imagination,  rather  than 
his  fancy,  dictated  his  choice  of  themes ;  and 
he  followed  that  unerring  guide. 

Fortunate,  also,  was  his  instinct  for  shaping 
his  work  of  art  from  that  which  lay  nearest.  All 
of  his  romances  except  one,  and  all  of  his  short 
stories  except  a  very  few,  are  given  a  New  Eng 
land  background.  To  the  task  of  describing  the 
landscape  and  people  most  familiar  to  him, 
Hawthorne  brought  an  extraordinary  veracity, 
and  a  hand  made  deft  by  years  of  unwearied 
exercise.  Yet  he  is  equally  effective  in  dealing 

[92] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

with  the  Pilgrims,  or  the  stately  days  of  the 
Massachusetts  Province.  He  loves,  in  stories 
like  the  Seven  Gables,  to  bring  the  past,  gray 
with  legendary  mist,  into  the  daylight  of  the 
present.  Here  the  foreground  and  background 
are  perfectly  harmonized ;  the  present  is  sig 
nificant  in  proportion  as  its  tones  are  mellowed 
and  reinforced  by  the  sombre  past.  Thus  Hilda 
and  Kenyon,  NewEnglanders  of  Hawthorne's 
day,  walk  over  the  bloodstained  pavements  of 
old  Rome,  and  the  ghostly  shadows  of  the 
Eternal  City  are  about  them  as  they  move. 
Hawthorne  himself  considered  the  "  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables"  and  the  "Marble  Faun1 ' 
his  best  achievements.  They  belong  to  the 
same  type.  Time  and  place  and  circumstance 
conformed  to  his  feeling  for  the  Romantic.  In 
deed,  his  sensitiveness  to  the  Romantic  note 
affects  his  characters  throughout.  They  include 
a  wide  range  of  individualities,  but  they  are  not 
depicted  by  the  usual  methods  of  realistic  por 
traiture.  New  Englanders  in  the  main,  few  of 
them  exhibit  that  New  England  eccentricity  of 
speech  and  manner  so  assiduously  observed  by 
short-story  writers  since  Hawthorne's  time. 
He  did  not  trouble  himself — and  us — with 

[93] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

dialect.  Indeed,  all  his  characters,  like  Brown 
ing's,  talk  much  the  same  language.  His  men 
and  women  are  visible  through  a  certain  atmos 
phere  which  does  not  blur  their  features,  yet 
softens  them.  Even  his  fullest  and  richest  per 
sonalities,  like  Zenobia,  maintain  a  distance 
from  us. 

His  plots  likewise,  various  as  they  are,  have 
the  simplicity  of  true  Romance.  His  most 
widely  read  production,  the  story  of  Hester 
Prynne  and  Arthur  Dimmesdale,  has  practi 
cally  no  plot  whatever;  it  is  a  study  of  a  situ 
ation.  For  moral  problems,  in  spite  of  the  in 
genious  practice  of  Mr.  Henry  James  and  Mr. 
Meredith,  can  usually  be  reduced  to  a  very 
simple  equation.  An  elaborate,  many-threaded 
plot,  full  of  incidents  and  surprises,  of  unex 
pected  labyrinths  and  heaven-sent  clues,  would 
destroy  the  very  atmosphere  which  Hawthorne 
seeks  to  create.  The  action  of  his  romances  is 
seldom  dramatic,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word. 
To  dramatize  the  cc  Scarlet  Letter  "  is  to  coarsen 
it.  The  deliberate  action,  the  internal  moral 
conflict,  the  subtle  revelation  of  character,  are 
all  suited  to  the  descriptive,  not  the  dramatur 
gic  method.  They  are  in  perfect  keeping  with 

[94] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

the  tone  which  Hawthorne  instinct! vely,-mainr. 


tained.  He  placed  the  persons  who  were  to 
exemplify  his  themes  now  in  the  present,  now 
in  the  past,  if  possible  in  the  half-light  of  mingled 
past  and  present,  and /but  of  the  simplest,  most 
familiar  materials  -he  learned  to  compose  a  pic 
ture  so  perfect  in  detail,  so  harmonious  in  ke 
that  even  were  the  theme  of  slight  significance, 
he  would  still  vindicate  his  right  to  a  high  place 
among  literary  artists. 

^  ^j^ Aaps»jJ3£~  mosfe-- convincing  test  of 
.wthorne's  merit  is  one  of  the  most  obvious. 
en  one  of  his  books  anywhere,  and  read  a 
page  aloud.  Whatever  else  there  may  be,  here 
is  style.)Hawthorne  was  once  asked  the  secret 
of  his  style.  He  replied  dryly  that  it  was  the 
result  of  a  great  deal  of  practice;  that  it  came 
from  the  desire  to  tell  the  simple  truth  as  hon 
estly  and  vividly  as  he  could.  We  may  place 
alongside  of  this  matter-of-fact  confession  a 
whimsical  dream  which  he  once  noted  in  his 
journal,  to  the  effect  that  the  world  had  become 
dissatisfied  with  the  inaccurate  manner  in  which 
facts  were  reported,  and  had  employed  him  at 
a  salary  of  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  to  relate 
things  of  importance  exactly  as  they  happened. 

[95] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Is  simple  truth-telling,  then,  explanation 
enough  ?  Hawthorne  had,  indeed,  a  passion  for 
observing  and  reporting  facts.  Sometimes  these 
facts  are  insignificant.  For  instance :  "  The 
aromatic  odor  of  peat  smoke  in  the  sunny  au 
tumnal  air  is  very  pleasant."  Mr.  Henry  James 
has  remarked  of  this  sentence  that  when  a  man 
turned  thirty  gives  a  place  in  his  mind  —  and 
his  inkstand  —  to  such  trifles  as  these,  it  is 
because  nothing  else  of  superior  importance 
demands  admission.  But  this  is  much  like  say 
ing  that  because  a  botanist  happens  to  put  a 
dandelion  into  his  can  he  has,  therefore,  no  eye 
for  arr  orchid.  To  the  genuine  collector  there 
are  no  trifles,  and  Hawthorne  had  at  one  time 
the  collector's  passion.  No  French  or  Russian 
realist  had  more  of  it.  Certain  pages  of  his  note 
books  and  early  sketches  make  one  exclaim, 
"  Here  is  a  man  with  the  gifts  of  Balzac  or  Tol 
stoi  !  Why  might  he  not  have  become  a  great 
realistic  writer,  endowed  as  he  was  with  this 
thirst  for  the  actual?  He  would  so  well  earn 
that  thousand  dollars  a  year!"  But  the  facts, 
as  such,  were  not  enough  to  hold  Hawthorne 
long;  he  pressed  on  beyond  the  fact  to  the 
truth  behind  it.  As  he  developed,  he  collected 

[96] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

certain  facts  to  the  neglect  of  others.  He  ob 
served,  but  he  also  philosophized.  If,  there 
fore,  the  technique  of  his  descriptive  work  often 
reminds  us  of  the  great  realists,  the  use  he 
makes  of  his  talent  as  an  observer  and  reporter 
forbids  us  to  group  him  with  them.  He  was 
born  with  too  curious  an  interest  in  the  unseen 
world.  However  striking  his  technical  gifts,  he 
wrote  as  a  romancer,  a  creator. 

And  what  a  writer  this  provincial  New  Eng- 
lander  is  !  We  talk  glibly  nowadays  about  paint 
ing  and  writing  with  one's  eye  on  the  object. 
Hawthorne  could  do  this  when  he  chose;  but 
think  of  writing  with  your  eye  on  the  consciences 
of  Arthur  Dimmesdale  and  Hester  Prynne, 
and  never  relaxing  your  gaze  till  the  book  is 
done  !  What  concentration  of  vision !  What 
exposing  power !  (Hawthorne's  vocabulary  is 
not  extraordinarily  large  ;  —  nothing  like  Bal 
zac's  or  Meredith's  ;  but  the  words  are  chosen 
like  David's  five  smooth  stones  out  of  the 
brook.  The  sentences  move  in  perfect  poise. 
Their  ease  is  perhaps  a  little  self-conscious ;  — 
pains  have  been  taken  with  their  dressing,  —  it 
is  not  the  careless  inevitable  grace  of  Thack 
eray,  —  but  it  is  a  finished  grace  of  their  own. 

[97] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

It  is  a  style  exquisitely  simple,  except  in  those 
passages  where  Hawthorne's  fancy  gets  the  bet 
ter  of  him,  and  leads  him  into  forced  humor,  all 
the  worse  for  its  air  of  cultivated  exuberance. 
Yet  even  when  he  sins  against  simplicity,  he  is 
always  transparently  clear.  The  certainty  of 
word  and  phrase,  the  firmness  of  outline  are 
marvelous,  when  we  consider  the  airy  nature  of 
much  of  his  material ;  he  may  be  building  cloud- 
castles,  but  it  is  in  so  pure  a  sky  that  the  white 
battlements  and  towers  stand  out  sharp-edged 
as  marble. 

Because  Hawthorne  gave  his  work  such  an 
elaborate  finish,  some  readers  are  apt  to  forget 
its  underlying  strength.  Our  own  day  of  natur 
alistic  impressionism  and  correct  historical  cos 
tuming  has  invented  a  hundred  sensational  and 
clever  ways  of  tearing  a  passion  to  tatters.  But  it 
is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  the  real  strength 
of  a  work  of  fiction  is  in  the  conception  under- 
/'  lying  it,  and  that  the  deepest  currents  of  thought 
and  feeling  are 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam. 

Strong-fibred,  sane,  self-controlled,  as  was 
Hawthorne,  one  may  nevertheless  detect  in  his 
style  that  melancholy  vibration  which  marks 

[98] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

the  words' of  all — or  almost  all  —  those  who 
have  interpreted  through  literature  the  more 
mysterious  aspects  of  life.  This  pathos  is  pro 
found,  though  it  is  quiet ;  it  is  an  undertone,  but 
not  the  fundamental  tone ;  "the  gloom  and  ter 
ror  may  lie  deep,  but  deeper  still  is  this  eternal 
beauty." 

Yet  the  most  marked  quality  of  Hawthorne's 
style  is  neither  simplicity,  nor  clearness,  nor  re 
serve  of  strength,  nor  undertone  of  pathos.  It 
is  rather  its  unbroken  melody,  its  verbal  rich 
ness.  Its  echoes  linger  in  the  ear;  they  wake  old 
echoes  in  the  brain.  The  touch  of  a  few  other 
men  may  be  as  perfect,  the  notes  they  evoke 
more  brilliant,  certainly  more  gay;  but  Haw 
thorne's  deep-toned  instrument  yields  harmo 
nies  inimitable  and  unforgettable.  The  critics 
who  talk  of  the  colorless  life  of  New  England 
and  its  colorless  reflection  in  literature  had  ~ 
better  open  their  Hawthorne  once  more.  His 
pages  are  steeped  in  color.  They  have  a  dusky 
glory  like  the  great  window  in  Keats's  "Eve  of 
St.  Agnes":  — 

.  .  .  diamonded  with  panes  of  quaint  device, 

Innumerable  of  stains  and  splendid  dyes, 

As  are  the  tiger-moth's  deep-damask' d  wings; 

[99] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

And  in  the  midst,  'mong  thousand  heraldries, 

And  twilight  saints,  and  dim  emblazonings, 

A  shielded  scutcheon  blush' d  with  blood  of  queens  and  kings. 

This  subdued  splendor  of  Hawthorne's  col 
oring  is  a  part  of  the  very  texture  of  his  style ; 
compared  with  it  the  brushwork  of  his  suc 
cessors  seems  thin  and  washy,  or  else  crude 
and  hard;  it  is  like  comparing  a  rug  woven  in 
Bokhara  with  one  manufactured  in  Connecticut. 
But  surely  our  New  England  soil  is  not  wholly 
barren  if  even  for  once  it  has  flowered  into  such 
a  consummate  artist  as  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
who,  while  he  devoted  his  art  to  the  interpreta 
tion  of  truth,  was  nevertheless  dowered  with 
such  instinct  for  beauty  that  his  very  words 
glow  like  gems  and  echo  like  music,  and  grant 
him  a  place  among  the  few  masters  of  English 
style 


a  pi 


After  all,  we  do  not  celebrate  the  centenary 
of  Hawthorne's  birth  merely  because  he  was  a 
skillful,  an  admirable  writer.  Rather  do  we  take 
a  solemn  pride  in  commemorating  one  who 
steadfastly  asserted  the  claims  of  spiritual  things. 
He  wrote  in  a  generation  fortunate  in  its  bal 
ance  between  the  hard  material  struggles  of  the 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

colonist  and  pioneer,  and  the  far  more  dan 
gerous  materialism  that  comes  with  luxury  and 
power.  America  had  lived  through  sufficient 
history  to  give  perspective  to  her  romancers ; 
she  had  not  yet  undergone  the  demoralizing 
strain  of  prosperity  which  has  followed  upon 
the  epoch  of  the  Civil  War.  Never  were  Amer 
icans  so  profoundly  idealistic,  so  temperament 
ally  fit  to  understand  the  spiritualized  art  of 
Hawthorne,  as  between  1840  and  1860.  And 
our  pride  in  him  is  touched  with  a  subtle  regret 
at  the  disappearance  of  a  fine  civilization,  pro 
vincial  as  it  was.  A  more  splendid  civilization 
is  still  to  come,  no  doubt ;  but  the  specific  con 
ditions  that  blossomed  into  many  of  Haw 
thorne's  tales  are  irrevocably  gone.  Great  as  he 
seems  when  we  look  back,  he  seems  still  greater 
when  we  look  around  us.  It  is  no  service  to 
Hawthorne's  memory  to  disparage  the  indus 
trious  men  and  women  who  are  producing  our 
fiction  of  to-day.  But  to  glance  at  them,  and 
then  to  think  of  him,  is  to  perceive  the  start 
ling  difference  between  talent  and  genius. 

No  one  would  claim  that  that  genius  was 
faultless  in  all  its  divinations.  Feeble  drawing, 
ineffective  symbolism,  morbid  dallying  with 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

mortuary  fancies,  may  indeed  be  detected  in  his 
books.  That  sound  critic  Edwin  P.  Whipple, 
who  is  passing  into  such  ill-deserved  oblivion, 
once  said  of  Hawthorne:  "He  had  spiritual 
insight,  but  it  did  not  penetrate  to  the  sources 
of  spiritual  joy."  The  note  of  robust  triumph, 
of  unquestioning  faith  in  individual  happiness 
and  in  the  sure  advance  of  human  society,  is 
indeed  too  rarely  heard  in  his  writings.  In  re 
peating  his  paternoster,  the  stress  falls  upon 
"Forgive  us  our  trespasses  "  rather  than  upon 
"  Thy  Kingdom  come." 

Yet  he  believed  that  the  sin  and  sorrow  of 
humanity,  inexplicable  as  they  are,  are  not  to 
be  thought  of  as  if  we  were  apart  from  God. 
A  neighbor  of  Hawthorne  in  Concord  has  re 
cently  written  me  that  once,  when  death  entered 
a  household  there,  Hawthorne  picked  the  finest 
sunflower  from  his  garden,  and  sent  it  to  the 
mourners  by  Mrs.  Hawthorne  with  this  mes 
sage  :  "  Tell  them  that  the  sunflower  is  a  sym 
bol  of  the  sun,  and  that  the  sun  is  a  symbol  of 
the  glory  of  God."  A  shy,  simple  act  of  neigh 
borhood  kindness, —  yet  treasured  in  one  mem 
ory  for  more  than  forty  years ;  and  how  much 
of  Hawthorne  there  is  in  it!  The  quaint  flower 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  HAWTHORNE 

from  an  old-fashioned  garden ;  the  delicate  sym 
pathy  ;  the  perfect  phrase ;  the  faith  in  the  power 
of  a  symbol  to  turn  the  perplexed  soul  to  God! 
Hawthorne  was  no  natural  lover  of  darkness, 
but  rather  one  who  yearned  for  light.  The 
gloom  which  haunts  many  of  his  pages  is  the 
long  shadow  cast  by  our  mortal  destiny  upon 
a  sensitive  soul,  conscious  of  kinship  with  the 
erring  race  of  men.  The  mystery  is  our  mys 
tery,  perceived,  and  not  created,  by  that  finely 
endowed  mind  and  heart.  The  shadow  is  our 
shadow;  the  gleams  of  insight,  the  soft  radi 
ance  of  truth  and  beauty,  are  his  own. 


THE  CENTENARY  OF 
LONGFELLOW 


The   Centenary  of 
Longfellow 

WE  allow  the  centenaries  of  our  men  of  letters 
to  pass  without  general  observance.  The  one 
hundredth  anniversaries  of  the  births  of  Haw 
thorne  and  of  Emerson  were,  indeed,  duly  cele 
brated  at  Brunswick,  Salem,  Concord,  and  Bos 
ton.  But  these  were  exercises  of  local  piety,  the 
expression  of  a  laudable  provincial  pride.  A 
wide  national  recognition  of  such  anniversaries 
does  not  yet  come  easily  to  us;  "they  order 
this  matter  better  in  France,"  with  a  more  spon 
taneous  clashing  of  the  cymbals,  a  more  graceful 
processional  to  the  shrine.  It  is  possible  that  the 
anniversary  of  Longfellow's  birth  may  be  more 
generally  and  tenderly  remembered  than  that 
of  other  American  authors  of  his  time.  Multi 
tudes  of  his  countrymen,  to  whom  Hawthorne 
and  Poe  were  mere  necromancers,  and  Emerson 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

a  shining  seraph  announcing  unintelligible 
things,  thought  of  Longfellow  as  a  familiar 
friend.  But  twenty-five  years  have  already 
elapsed  since  his  death.  To  a  busy  republic, 
swift  to  forget  even  its  best  servants,  a  quarter 
of  a  century  is  a  long  period,  and  the  startling 
political  and  social  changes  which  have  been 
brought  about  within  that  interval  make  it  seem 
even  longer  still.  Longfellow's  noble  life  and 
work  have  indeed  kept  him  in  remembrance; 
but  apparently  it  is  only  Lincoln,  among  all 
the  figures  of  that  generation,  who  has  grown 
steadily  in  popular  fame. 

It  is  inevitable  that  there  should  be  some 
reaction  against  the  extraordinary  popularity 
which  Longfellow's  poetry  enjoyed  during  his 
lifetime.  Nor  should  his  most  loyal  admirers 
quarrel  with  the  spirit  which  to-day  seeks  to 
scrutinize  the  causes  of  such  a  popularity.  To 
the  true  lover  of  books,  the  quality  of  a  poet  is 
everything;  the  counting  of  the  heads  of  the 
poet's  audience  is  but  an  idle  occupation.  It  is 
difficult  for  Colonel  Higginson  to  write  other 
wise  than  delightfully,  but  I  wish  that  he  had 
not  begun  his  "  Life  of  Longfellow  "  by  giving 
the  British  Museum  statistics  of  the  demand  for 
[  108  ] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

Longfellow's  writings,  and  the  editions  in  the 
various  languages  of  the  world.  Do  not  even  the 
publicans  and  the  historical  novelists  the  same? 
Such  figures  —  unless  they  cover  more  than  a 
single  generation  —  raise  more  doubts  than  they 
allay.  Nowhere  is  a  little  wise  distrust  of  the 
popular  judgment  more  sanative  than  in  the 
field  of  poetry.  The  literary  mass-meeting  set 
tles  nothing.  If  it  records  an  enormous  majority 
for  some  candidate  to-day,  it  is  likely  to-morrow 
to  vote  his  name  wearisomely  familiar,  imitating 
that  illogical  but  very  human  and  likable  Athe 
nian  who  petulantly  marked  his  ballot  against 
Aristides. 

Yet  if  a  little  skepticism  as  to  the  wisdom  of 
the  general  contemporary  verdict  is  wholesome, 
a  complete  skepticism  is  rash.  I  know  a  shrewd 
and  slightly  cynical  publisher  who  insists  that 
the  popularity  of  a  piece  of  literature  is  always 
in  an  inverse  ratio  to  its  excellence.  This  is  a 
pleasing  and  easily  remembered  formula.  It 
collapses,  however,  when  you  say  "  Hamlet." 
And  I  think  it  collapses  when  you  say  "  Evan- 
geline."  The  presumption  may  be,  and  for  cer 
tain  fastidious  minds  it  always  will  be,  that  a 
popular  poem  cannot  have  a  high  literary  rating. 

[   I09  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

But  it  is  one  of  the  most  unsafe  presumptions 
upon  which  a  critic  can  put  out  to  sea.  There  is, 
to  be  sure,  a  natural  commonplaceness  which 
forms  a  solidarity  of  sympathy  between  certain 
authors  and  their  public.  I  once  asked  a  poet : 
"Howdoesour  friend  Blank,thenovelist,man- 
age  to  hit  the  average  vulgar  taste  with  such  won 
derful  accuracy?"  "He  doesn't  bit  it,"  said 
the  poet  gloomily, "  he  is  it."  But  this  complete 
identity  of  author  and  audience  must  be  sharply 
distinguished  from  that  exquisite  gift  possessed 
by  a  few  men  of  essential  distinction,  —  like 
Gray,  like  Goethe,  like  Longfellow,  —  of  giving 
perfect  expression  to  certain  feelings  which  are 

in  widest  commonalty  spread. 

Both  of  these  classes  of  writers  may  produce  a 
widely  popular  poem  or  book.  But  the  differ 
ence  in  the  result  is  that  which  separates  "  David 
Harum  "  from  «  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  and 
" The  Old  Oaken  Bucket"  from  the  "  Elegy  in 
a  Country  Churchyard."  Longfellow,  it  is  true, 
sometimes  allowed  himself  to  print  common 
place  pieces.  Like  most  poets,  and  like  every 
American  poet  of  his  generation  except  Poe,he 
published  too  much.  He  had  a  sympathic  per- 
[no] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

ception  of  the  moods  of  unsophisticated  people, 
and  he  usually  preferred  to  interpret  such  feel 
ings  rather  than  the  more  recondite  aspects  of 
human  experience.  He  felt,  as  we  all  feel,  that 
the  rain  is  beautiful,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
say  inverse, — 

How  beautiful  is  the  rain  ! 

That  he  ran  a  certain  risk  in  thus  carrying  sim 
plicity  to  the  verge  of  guilelessness  he  must 
have  been  aware,  through  the  early  and  constant 
parodies  upon  this  vein  of  his  poetry.  But  he 
knew  his  course.  He  gained  and  held  his  great 
circle  of  readers  by  precisely  this  obedience  to 
his  instinct.  His  contemporaries  felt  what  Em 
erson  (with  perhaps  a  touch  of  unconscious 
patronage)  wrote  about "  Hiawatha" :  "  I  have 
always  one  foremost  satisfaction  in  reading  your 
books,  that  I  am  safe."  To  speak  safely  to  one 
generation  is  to  speak  with  some  hazard  to  the 
generations  following,  and  Longfellow's  beau 
tiful  work  has  already  paid  a  penalty  for  his 
overwhelming  immediate  success. 

In  one  other  respect,  too,  we  must  note  a 
sort  of  whispered  reservation  that  is  sometimes 
made  when  Longfellow's  name  is  spoken.  One 
need  not  fear  to  utter  it,  even  in  the  magazine 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

to  which  he  was  such  a  friendly  and  honored 
contributor.  Was  he,  after  all,  a  great  poet? 
Mr.  Longfellow  himself,  with  his  delicate  sense 
of  literary  values,  would  have  respected  the 
scruple  which  prompts  such  a  question.  One 
may  easily  imagine  what  he  would  have  replied. 
He  was  once  showing  the  Craigie  House,  with 
his  unmatched  courtesy,  to  one  of  those  igno 
rant  bores  whom  he  patiently  allowed  to  ravage 
his  golden  hours.  The  stranger  asked  if  Shake 
speare  did  not  live  somewhere  about  there.  "  I 
told  him,"  said  Mr.  Longfellow,  "  I  knew  no 
such  person  in  this  neighborhood:"  Exactly. 
No  such  person  as  Shakespeare  has  ever  been 
in  the  Cambridge  Directory.  But  what  of  it? 
Why  should  size  be  snatched  at  as  the  chief  cri 
terion  of  poetic  performance  ?  The  nightingale, 
type  and  symbol  of  all  poets,  is  but  a  small 
brown  bird. 

How  Longfellow  himself  regarded  an  indu 
bitably  great  poet  may  be  seen  in  his  incompar 
able  sonnets  upon  the  "  Divina  Commedia." 
Dante's  poem  is  there  likened  to  a  cathedral, 
within  whose  doors  the  tumult  of  the  time  dies 
away, — 

While  the  eternal  ages  watch  and  wait. 

[    "2] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

Old  agonies  and  exultations  haunt  these  shad 
ows  ;  here  are  echoes  of  tragedies  and  of  celestial 
voices.  The  windows  are  ablaze  with  saints  and 
martyrs;  the  organ  sounds;  the  unseen  choirs 
sing  the  Latin  hymns ;  and  the  head  is  bowed  in 
the  presence  of  the  ineffable  mysteries  of  the 
Faith.  Nothing  built  by  human  hands  has  the 
dark  grandeur  of  such  a  minster.  There  is  only 
one  other  place  that  may  be  as  sacfed, —  and 
that  is  the  home.  To  open  Dante  is  like  passing 
within  the  solemn  portal  of  a  cathedral ;  to  read 
Longfellow  is  like  entering  the  Craigie  House. 
The  fine  dignity  of  the  vanished  eighteenth 
century  is  here.  From  the  doorway  stretches  a 
gentle  landscape,  with  its  winding  river  and  low 
hills.  All  around  there  is  quiet  beauty,  with 
lilacs  and  elms  and  green  lawns  sweet  with  chil 
dren's  voices ;  within  the  old  mansion  wait  hos 
pitality,  and  gracious  courtesy,  and  the  savor  of 
worn  books,  and  the  sanctities  of  long,  intimate 
converse  with  all  lovely  and  honorable  things. 
It  is  a  friend's  roof,  and  it  welcomes  us  in  hours 
when  the  cathedral  oppresses  or  appalls. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  men  and  women  of  New 
England  blood  are  loyal  to  Longfellow.    His 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

stock  was  of  the  finest  of  our  sifted  wheat.  John 
Alden,  the  young  lover  in  his  most  perfect  nar 
rative  poem, —  that  "bunch  of  May-flowers 
from  the  Plymouth  woods/' — was  his  maternal 
ancestor.  Among  his  forbears  were  men  distin 
guished  for  gallantry  in  the  country's  service, 
and  for  stainless  integrity  of  private  character. 
His  boyhood  in  Portland  was  typical  of  the 
time  and  section,  in  its  moral  sweetness,  its  in 
tellectual  hunger  and  fine  ambition.  He  had  the 
look  of  his  family, — the  slim  straight  figure, 
the  waving  brown  hair,  the  blue  eyes,  the  quickly 
flushed  cheeks.  He  read  in  his  father's  library 
the  sound  English  classics  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  the  first  book  to  fascinate  his  im 
agination  was  Irving's  "  Sketch-Book."  "  I  was 
a  schoolboy  when  it  was  published,"  he  wrote 
forty  years  afterward,  "  and  read  each  succeed 
ing  number  with  ever  increasing  wonder  and 
delight,  spell-bound  by  its  pleasant  humor,  its 
melancholy  tenderness,  its  atmosphere  of  re- 
very, —  nay,  even  by  its  gray-brown  covers, 
the  shaded  letters  of  its  titles,  and  the  fair,  clear 
type,  which  seemed  an  outward  symbol  of  its 
style."  Such  was  the  boy  of  whom — at  the  ripe 
age  of  six — his  schoolmaster  had  testified  that 

[  "4] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

"  his  conduct  last  quarter  was  very  correct  and 
amiable,"  and  of  whom  a  classmate  at  Bowdoin 
—  in  that  famous  class  of  1 8  2  5 — said,  "It  ap 
peared  easy  for  him  to  avoid  the  unworthy." 

One  is  reminded  of  the  remark  made  by 
Puvis  de  Chavannes  in  the  hour  of  his  long- 
deferred  triumph  as  an  artist.  "  Who  was  your 
master  ? "  he  was  asked.  "  I  never  had  any  mas 
ter,"  said  the  painter,  thinking  perhaps  of  his 
restless,  friendless  journeys  from  one  atelier  to 
another;  "my  master  has  been  a  horror  of  cer 
tain  things."  That  fineness  of  nature  which 
made  it  seem  easy  for  Longfellow,  as  for  his 
classmate  Hawthorne,  to  avoid  the  unworthy, 
was  perfected  by  the  firm  intellectual  discipline 
and  the  clear  flame  of  aspiration  that  character 
ized  the  years  spent  in  the  struggling  country 
college.  Typical  of  that  period  was  his  un 
ashamed  acknowledgment  of  his  heart's  ambi 
tion,  revealed  in  a  well-known  letter  to  his 
father:  "The  fact  is,  I  most  eagerly  aspire  after 
future  eminence  in  literature;  my  whole  soul 
burns  most  ardently  for  it,  and  every  earthly 
thought  centres  in  it."  How  charming  it  is, 
this  boyish  ardor!  Longfellow's  was  but  one  of 
hundreds  of  such  voices  rising  from  every  home 

[  "5] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

of  learning  in  New  England,  three  quarters  of 
a  century  ago.  We  hear  them  still,  in  the  fresh 
tones  of  this  eager,  generous,  high-minded 
youth,  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  realize  his 
dream. 

It  was  fulfilled,  as  most  dreams  are,  in  unfore 
seen  ways.  Through  the  range  and  the  quality 
of  Longfellow's  life-work  he  was  enabled  to 
perform  a  spiritual  service  for  his  countrymen. 
He  was  to  become  a  national,  rather  than  a 
merely  provincial  figure.  In  our  imaginations, 
indeed,  he  lingers  as  a  lovely  flowering  of  all 
that  was  most  fair  in  the  New  England  tem 
perament  and  training,  in  that  long  blossoming 
season  which  began  with  Emerson's  "Nature" 
and  ended  —  no  one  knows  just  when  or  how 
— within  a  decade  or  two  after  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War.  There  is  but  too  much  truth  in  Mr. 
Oliver  Herford's  witty  description  of  the  pre 
sent-day  New  England  as  the  abandoned  farm 
of  literature.  Apparently  the  soil  must  lie  fal 
low  for  a  while,  or  some  one  must  plough  deeper 
than  our  melancholy  short-story  writers  seem  to 
go.  But  when  the  old  orchard  was  bearing,  what 
bloom  and  fruitage  were  hers! 

Yet  Longfellow  was  far  more  than  a  melo- 
[  "6] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

dious  voice  of  that  New  England  springtime. 
It  became  his  privilege  to  interpret  to  his  gen 
eration  the  hitherto  alien  treasures  of  European 
culture.  He  brought  Spain  and  Italy,  France 
and  Germany  and  the  shadowy  northern  races, 
into  the  consciousness  of  his  countrymen. 
While  Irving  and  Bryant  were  the  pioneers  in 
this  adventure,  it  was  through  Longfellow, 
more  than  any  other  man,  that  the  poetry  of 
the  Old  World  —  the  romance  of  town  and 
tower  and  storied  stream,  the  figures  of  monk 
and  saint  and  man-at-arms,  of  troubadour  and 
minnesinger,  of  artist  and  builder  and  dreamer 
— became  the  familiar  possession  of  the  New. 
This  immense  service  was  made  possible 
through  Longfellow's  scholarship.  When  he 
was  graduated  from  Bowdoin,  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  he  had  a  good  knowledge  of  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  a  fair  amount  of  French.  Receiving 
the  promise  of  a  professorship  of  modern  lan 
guages  at  his  alma  mater,  upon  the  condition 
that  he  should  prepare  himself  by  European 
study,  he  sailed  in  1826  for  a  three  years'  ab 
sence.  After  two  years  and  a  half  he  was  able 
to  write  to  his  father:  "I  know  you  cannot  be 
dissatisfied  with  the  progress  I  have  made  in 

[  "7] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

my  studies.  I  speak  honestly,  not  boastfully. 
With  the  French  and  Spanish  languages  I  am 
familiarly  conversant,  so  as  to  speak  them  cor 
rectly,  and  write  them  with  as  much  ease  and 
fluency  as  I  do  the  English.  The  Portuguese  I 
read  without  difficulty.  And  with  regard  to  my 
proficiency  in  the  Italian,  I  have  only  to  say 
that  all  at  the  hotel  where  I  lodge  took  me  for 
an  Italian  until  I  told  them  I  was  an  Ameri 
can."  He  then  proceeded  to  master  German, 
and  in  subsequent  years  familiarized  himself 
with  several  other  languages  of  northern 
Europe.  During  the  five  or  six  years  of  his 
Bowdoin  professorship,  and  for  eighteen  years 
at  Harvard,  he  gave  careful  and  competent  in 
struction  in  these  languages,  lecturing  regularly 
upon  various  foreign  literatures,  and  superin 
tending  the  work  of  the  picturesque  and  often 
extremely  difficult  foreign  gentlemen  (the 
"four-in-hand  of  outlandish  animals  all  pull 
ing  the  wrong  way,  except  one")  who  acted  as 
his  assistants.  Of  the  extent  and  accuracy  of 
his  linguistic  attainments  his  published  trans 
lations  from  no  less  than  nine  languages  are  a 
sufficient  proof.  His  college  tasks  left  him 
scanty  leisure,  his  eyesight  was  early  impaired, 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

and  he  gave  himself  freely  to  the  claims  of  hos 
pitality  ;  and  yet  in  spite  of  these  drawbacks  his 
acquaintance  with  the  literatures  of  mediaeval 
and  modern  Europe  became  extraordinary.  He 
made  no  pretense,  however,  to  strictly  philo 
logical  erudition,  and  he  would  probably  have 
regarded  with  mild  surprise  the  formidable  ap 
paratus  of  learning  which  our  contemporary 
scholars  love  to  bring  to  bear  upon  the  weak 
est  points  in  their  opponent's  line.  One  may 
even  venture  to  think  that  Longfellow  would 
have  found  such  philological  contests  rather 
dull.  He  played  by  preference  the  open  game, 
moving  with  a  delightful  swiftness  and  ease 
from  folklore  and  drinking-song  to  missal  and 
codex.  His  prose  volumes,  "Hyperion"  and 
"  Outre- Mer,"  reflect  something  of  the  variety 
of  his  reading,  and  his  natural  sympathy  with 
that  European  Romantic  movement  which  was 
still  occupied,  in  the  thirties,  with  revivifying 
the  past  and  lending  an  emotional  coloring  to 
the  present.  For  years  after  his  return  from  his 
first  long  sojourn  in  Europe  this  seemed  to  be 
his  calling:  to  give  a  few  American  boys  some 
bright  glimpses  of  those  illuminated  pages 
which  had  fascinated  his  own  fancy. 

[  "9] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Then,  after  a  decade  of  teaching,  came  the  re 
velation  of  his  true  power.  He  discovered  that 
he  was  himself  a  poet.  He  had  written  boyish 
verses,  such  as  we  all  write,  and  the  constant 
practice  in  metrical  translation  had  perfected  his 
sense  of  poetical  form.  But  here  was  a  new  im 
pulse.  His  Journal  notes  [Dec.  6,  1838]:  "A 
beautiful  holy  morning  within  me.  I  was  softly 
excited,  I  knew  not  why;  and  wrote  with  peace 
in  my  heart  and  not  without  tears  in  my  eyes, 
'The  Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  a  Psalm  of 
Death/  I  have  had  an  idea  of  this  kind  in  my 
mind  for  a  long  time,  without  finding  any  ex 
pression  for  it  in  words.  This  morning  it  seemed 
to  crystallize  at  once,  without  any  effort  of  my 
own."  How  familiar  that  "soft  excitement"  is 
to  those  who  listen  to  the  confidences  of  the 
poets;  and  how  inadequate  an  explanation, 
after  all,  of  the  miracle  by  which  a  poem  comes 
into  being! 

Longfellow  was  now  in  his  thirties.  He  had 
been  called  from  Brunswick  to  Cambridge.  The 
wife  of  his  youth  was  dead  in  a  foreign  land, 
and  he  had  returned  from  that  melancholy 
second  visit  to  Europe,  to  live  with  books  and 
a  few  friends.  His  youthful  ambition  for  emi- 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

nence  had  deepened  into  a  love  of  the  beauti 
ful  and  a  desire  to  speak  truth.  "  Fame  must 
be  looked  upon  only  as  an  accessory,"  he  wrote, 
in  a  heart-searching  letter  to  his  friend  Greene. 
"  If  it  has  ever  been  a  principal  object  with  me 
—  which  I  doubt  —  it  is  so  no  more."  Like 
Hawthorne,  he  found  fame  when  he  ceased  to 
seek  it.  "The  Psalm  of  Life,"  "The  Reaper 
and  the  Flowers,"  "The  Wreck  of  the  Hes 
perus,"  "The  Skeleton  in  Armor,"  "The 
Rainy  Day,"  "Maidenhood,"  "Excelsior," 
followed  one  another  as  thrushes  follow  one 
another  in  the  deep  woods  at  dawn,  with  mel 
odies  effortless  and  pure.  Everybody  listened. 
Two  of  these  poems,  "The  Psalm  of  Life" 
and  "Excelsior,"  have  indeed  paid  the  price  of 
a  too  apt  adjustment  to  the  ethical  mood  of 
that  "earnest"  moment  in  America.  They 
were  not  so  much  poems  as  calls  to  action,  and 
now  that  two  generations  have  passed,  those 
trumpets  rust  upon  the  wall.  It  is  enough  that 
they  had  their  glorious  hour. 

To  appeal  through  verse  to  the  national  as 
well  as  to  the  individual  conscience  was  not  for 
Longfellow,  as  it  was  for  Whittier  and  Lowell, 
a  natural  instinct.  His  path  lay  for  the  most 

[     121    ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

part  outside  the  field  of  political  poetry.  Yet 
by  his  anti-slavery  poems  of  1 842  he  placed 
himself  unmistakably  on  record  against  the 
most  gigantic  evil  of  his  day ;  and  in  his  anti 
militaristic  poem, "The  Arsenal  at  Springfield," 
he  protested  against  the  most  widespread  evil 
of  our  own.  History  loves  to  be  ironical.  Long 
fellow  lived  to  see  those  very  Springfield  rifles 
help  to  end  slavery  in  the  United  States ;  he 
lived  to  see  "  Enceladus  arise  "  and  shake  off 
by  force  of  arms  the  shackles  of  Italy;  but  he 
did  not  live  long  enough  to  hear  his  "holy 
melodies"  of  international  love  succeed  to  the 
diapasons  of  war.  The  high  priests  of  the  present 
dispensation  assure  us  that  his  vision  of  univer 
sal  disarmament  is  only  a  dream,  and  a  danger 
ous  dream.  Yet  there  are  and  will  be  others  to 
dream  it  until  they  make  the  dream  come  true. 
The  happiness  of  an  assured  recognition  by 
the  public  was  now  followed  by  the  deeper  joy 
of  anew  home,  but  his  habitation  still  remained 
the  Craigie  House.  Friends  multiplied,  al 
though  a  chosen  few,  like^elton^and  Sumner, 
had  still  their  privileged  place.  Xongfellow  be 
gan  to  build  in  fancy  a  great  poem,  dealing  with 
no  less  vast  a  theme  than  "  the  various  aspects 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

of  Christendom  in  the  Apostolic,  Middle  and 
Modern  Ages."  For  thirty  years  it  was  to  oc 
cupy  his  mind.  The  second  portion,  "  The 
Golden  Legend,"  was  finished  first :  a  lovely, 
full-blown  rose  of  learning,  of  sympathetic  in 
sight,  of  imagination.  The  third  part,  "The 
New  England  Tragedies,"  followed  after  nearly 
a  score  of  years;  and  "The  Divine  Tragedy," 
which  now  introduces  the  completed  poem, 
was  written  last.  Thus  the  poet's  task  was  ul 
timately  finished  ;  whether  it  was  truly  accom 
plished,  according  to  the  measure  of  his  aspi 
ration,  who  can  say?  He  was  not  by  nature  a 
tragic  poet.  The  New  England  dramas,  faith 
fully  as  they  reproduce  the  colonial  atmosphere, 
seem  but  a  provincial  conclusion  for  the  poet's 
comprehensive  scheme.  The  sacred  theme  of 
"The  Divine  Tragedy,"  and  the  scrupulous 
fidelity  with  which  Longfellow  weaves  the 
words  of  the  Scripture  into  his  pattern,  tend  to 
remove  the  poem  from  the  unimpeded  scrutiny 
of  criticism.  We  know  that  it  possessed  a  deep 
significance  to  the  author,  that  more  is  meant 
than  meets  the  ear,  completely  as  the  ear  is 
charmed.  It  is  one  of  the  instances,  not  rare 
in  the  history  of  letters,  where  a  poet's  great- 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

est  work — as  conceived  by  himself — has  been 
relatively  unregarded  by  his  public. 

For  it  is  unquestionable  that  to  his  contem 
poraries,  both  here  and  abroad,  Longfellow 
was  recognized  as  the  author  of  tender  lyrics, 
and  of  "  Evangeline,"  "  Hiawatha,"  and  "  The 
Courtship  of  Miles  Standish."  These  narra 
tive  poems  have  become  so  secure  a  national 
possession  that  criticism  seems  an  intrusion :  it 
is  like  carrying  a  rifle  into  a  national  park.  And 
it  is  to  be  suspected  that  the  most  formidably 
armed  critic  would  return  from  his  unlawful 
excursion  with  a  rather  empty  bag.  He  would 
discover,  no  doubt,  a  few  weak  hexameters  in 
"Evangeline,"  an  occasional  thinness  of  tone 
in  "  Hiawatha."  He  would  point  out  the  essen 
tially  bookish  origin  of  all  three  poems,  or  in 
other  words  —  what  is  true  enough  —  that 
Longfellow  loved  to  enter  the  House  of  Life 
by  the  library  door.  Very  possibly  there  might 
never  have  been  an  "  Evangeline "  if  there 
had  not  been  a  "  Hennann  and  Dorothea" 
first.  Very  probablyC^eltorTjand  T.  W.  Par 
sons  and  other  scholarly  friends  of  Longfellow 
were  right  in  their  feeling  that  the  dactylic 
measure  of  "  Evangeline  "  is  less  suited  to  our 

C 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

English  speech-rhythms  than  the  iambic.  Cer 
tainly  the  hexameters  of  "  Miles  Standish," 
with  their  frequent  iambic  substitutions,  are 
more  supple  and  racy  than  those  of  the  earlier 
poem.  But  this  does  not  take  us  very  far.  We 
are  no  nearer  the  heart  of  the  mystery  of  poetry 
for  knowing  that  the  rhythm  of  "  Hiawatha  " 
was  borrowed  from  the  Finnish  "Kalevala,"  and 
that  the  legends  were  taken,  with  due  acknow 
ledgments,  from  Schoolcraft.  After  all,  the  cru 
cial  question  about  Hiawatha's  canoe  was  not 
where  he  got  his  materials,  but  whether  the 
finished  craft  would  float ;  and  it  is  enough  to 
say  of  the  poem,  as  of  the  gayly  colored  canoe 
itself,  — 

And  the  forest's  life  was  in  it, 

All  its  mystery  and  its  magic, 

All  the  lightness  of  the  birch-tree, 

All  the  toughness  of  the  cedar, 

All  the  larch's  supple  sinews; 

And  it  floated  on  the  river, 

Like  a  yellow  leaf  in  Autumn, 

Like  a  yellow  water-lily. 

"Evangeline"  had  been  finished  on  the 
poet's  fortieth  birthday,  and  "The  Courtship 
of  Miles  Standish"  was  written  when  he  was 
fifty-one.  That  decade,  so  rich  in  poetic  pro- 

[ 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

ductiveness,  was  the  happiest  of  Longfellow's 
life.  He  had  been  granted  what  Sou  they,  an 
other  library  poet,  had  craved  for  himself,  — 

Books,  children,  leisure,  all  the  heart  desires. 

Success  —  a  ghastly  calamity  for  some  writers 
—  did  not  spoil  the  simplicity  of  his  nature 
and  the  sincerity  of  his  art.  As  the  years  went 
by,  he  discovered  that  college  teaching,  which 
had  been  pleasant  enough  at  first,  grew  weari 
some.  His  journal  is  full  of  half-humorous, 
half-plaintive  references  to  the  "  treadmill "  and 
the  "yoke";  he  likens  himself  to  a  miller,  his 
hair  white  with  meal,  trying  to  sing  amid  the 
din  and  clatter;  he  finds  it  hard  to  lecture  on 
so  delicate  a  subject  as  Petrarch  "  in  this  harsh 
climate,  in  a  college  lecture-room,  by  broad 
daylight."  In  1854  he  surrendered  his  college 
chair  to  Lowell,  and  gave  himself  hencefor 
ward  wholly  to  his  true  vocation.  He  could  not, 
indeed,  summon  the  ungracious  courage  to 
protect  himself  from  the  merciless  demands  of 
callers,  correspondents,  and  admirers  of  every 
sort.  In  one  week  he  wrote  nothing  but  let 
ters;  in  one  forenoon  he  entertained  fourteen 
callers,  thirteen  of  them  English.  But  aside 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

from  these  intrusions,  which  are  the  unavoid 
able  impost-tax  upon  popularity,  he  was  en 
abled,  in  almost  as  full  a  degree  as  Tennyson 
after  1 850,  to  ripen  upon  the  sunny  side  of  the 
wall.  The  sheltered  life  was  best,  no  doubt, 
for  that  delicate  nature  of  his,  disliking  to  strive 
and  cry  in  the  streets,  and  finding,  as  he  con 
fesses  in  his  journal, "life  and  its  ways  and  ends 
prosaic  in  this  country  to  the  last  degree."  He 
was  too  true  a  poet  not  to  feel  the  possibility  of 
a  poetic  inspiration  in  the  dominant  chords  of 
that  competitive  civilization  which  was  already 
vibrating  all  about  him.  He  notes  in  a  morning 
walk:  " I  see  the  red  dawn  encircling  the  hori 
zon,  and  hear  the  thundering  railway  trains,  ra 
diating  in  various  directions  from  the  city  along 
their  sounding  bars,  like  the  bass  of  some  great 
anthem, — our  national  anthem."  But  he  never 
— save  possibly  in  "The  Building  of  the  Ship" 
—  tried  to  set  that  anthem  to  music  of  his  own. 
One  is  reminded  of  that  other  sensitive  and  with 
drawn  person,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  who  said 
regretfully  of  the  rude  life  which  he  witnessed 
upon  the  wharves  of  Boston,  "A  better  book 
than  I  shall  ever  write  was  there."  Yet  it  would 
not  be  strange  if  both  Hawthorne  and  Long- 

[ 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

fellow  were  to  outlast  the  author  of  "  McAn- 
drew's  Hymn." 

In  fact,  the  last  decade — which  has  ordered 
its  writers  to  serve  up  life  in  the  raw,  to  write 
with  their  eye  upon  the  object,  and  to  sacrifice 
beauty  to  the  thrilling  sense  of  contact  with  act 
ual  experience  —  has  been  hardly  fair  to  the 
Cambridge  and  Concord  men.  It  is  undeniable 
that  there  was  a  transient  phase  of  "  softness  "  in 
the  forties,  which  Longfellow  did  not  escape. 
He  thought  it  "exquisite  to  read  good  novels 
in  bed  with  waxlights  in  silver  candlesticks," 
and  exclaimed,  after  reading  Fremont's  account 
of  the  Rocky  Mountain  expedition  of  1842, 
"But,  ah,  the  discomforts!"  He  remained  in 
lifelong  unacquaintance  with  the  physical  as 
pects  of  his  own  country.  Yet  we  forget  how 
quickly  the  bookish  man,  provided  he  have  the 
searchlight  of  imagination  upon  his  desk,  can 
dispense  with  first-hand  observation  of  scenery. 
Coleridge  wrote  the  "Hymn  to  Mont  Blanc" 
and  "The  Ancient  Mariner"  without  hav 
ing  seen  the  Vale  of  Chamonix  and  the  tropic 
ocean.  The  northwestern  and  southwestern 
American  landscapes  in  "  Hiawatha "  and 
"Evangeline"  are  no  less  "true  to  nature"  than 

[ 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

the  realistic  picture  of  the  rainy  morning  in  Sud- 
bury,  in  the  "Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn/'  The 
misfortune  of  the  home-keeping  poets  lies  not 
so  much  in  any  artistic  limitation,  as  in  our  own 
lurking  sense  that  some  bolder  and  more  en 
franchising  spiritual  adventures  might  have 
been  theirs  if  they  had  more  often  gone  down 
to  the  sea  in  ships  and  done  business  in  great 
waters. 

Yet  we  know  but  little,  either  from  his  jour 
nal  or  his  poems,  of  Longfellow's  inner  life. 
When  his  hour  of  dreadful  trial  came,  in  1861, 
he  met  it  with  a  gentleman's  silent  courage.  In 
the  years  that  followed  he  turned  again  for  solace 
to  his  translation  of  Dante,  begun  long  before. 
He  found  also,  in  his  device  of  the  Wayside 
Inn,  a  happy  mode  of  linking  together  many  a 
mellow  story  which  he  still  wished  to  tell.  The 
various  Interludes  reveal,  to  a  fuller  degree 
than  any  previous  work  of  his,  the  ease  of  the 
finished  artist,  playful  and  adroit.  The  stories 
are  for  the  most  part  Old  World  tales,  —  of 
Arabia  and  the  East,  of  Sicily  and  Tuscany, 
of  the  green  Alsatian  hills  and  the  gray  Baltic, 
—  but  here  too  are  "  Paul  Revere's  Ride  "  and 
"Lady  Wentworth."  It  is  inevitable  that  in 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

such  a  rich  collection  there  should  be  some  tales 
in  which  Longfellow's  masters  in  the  story-tell 
ing  art  would  have  surpassed  him ;  stories  to 
which  Boccaccio  would  have  imparted  a  gayer 
drollery,  or  Chaucer  a  more  robust  breath  of  the 
highroad.  But  we  who  have  loved  these  stories 
in  youth  rarely  tire  of  them,  and  the  most  bril 
liant,  I  think,  are  those  that  are  most  completely 
the  product  of  Longfellow's  own  fancy, — 

—  an  invention  of  the  Jew, 
Spun  from  the  cobwebs  of  his  brain, 
And  of  the  same  bright  scarlet  thread 
As  was  the  Tale  of  Kambalu. 

With  the  completion  of  "The  Divine  Tra 
gedy,"  the  trilogy  now  published  under  the  title 
"Christus:  A  Mystery "  was  finished.  Long 
fellow  began  almost  immediately  another  long 
dramatic  poem,  "  Michael  Angelo,"  which  was 
found  in  his  desk  after  his  death.  It  is  difficult 
to  characterize  it  fitly,  or  to  realize  all  the  subtle 
bonds  of  affinity  which  drew  the  thoughts  of 
the  aging  Longfellow  to  the  last  survivor  of  the 
greatest  artistic  period  of  Italy.  Mr.  Horace 
Scudder,one  of  the  most  sympathetic  and  best- 
equipped  critics  of  American  verse,  used  to  con 
sider  this  poem  as  Longfellow's  apologia  pro 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

vita  sua,  wherein  the  reader  is  always  aware  of 
Longfellow's  presence,  "wise,  calm,  reflective, 
musing  over  the  large  thoughts  of  life  and  art." 
I  confess  that  I  cannot  see  so  clearly  as  this 
beneath  the  smooth,  shadowed  surface  of  the 
poem.  It  is  Longfellow's  most  finished  blank 
verse, — a  verse  that  sings,  mourns,  and  aspires, 
but  never  quite  laughs ;  indeed,  this  was  no  time 
for  laughter,  after  the  sack  of  Rome.  In  lieu  of 
action,  there  is  a  succession  of  charming  or  grave 
conversations,  woven  together  out  of  the  gos 
sipy  pages  of  Cellini,  Vasari,  and  many  another 
chronicler;  to  read  them  is  to  see  again  the  yel 
lowing  travertine,  the  broken  arches,  and  the 
stone  pines  against  the  Roman  sky ;  it  is  to  feel 
the  pathos  of  unfulfilled  dreams,  of  a  titanic, 
unavailing  struggle  against  a  petty  world ;  in  a 
word,  it  is  to  watch  the  red  melancholy  sunset 
of  the  Renaissance.  But  it  is  a  strange  apologia 
for  the  American  poet. 

Although  the  last  two  decades  of  Longfel 
low's  life  produced  these  longer  poems,  with  a 
deeper  symbolism  which  may  escape  the  casual 
reader,  they  also  gave  to  the  world  some  of  his 
best-known  and  most  characteristic  work.  The 
range  of  his  poetic  faculty  and  the  ripeness  of 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

his  technical  skill  were  exhibited  in  lyrics  fully 
as  lovely  and  varied  as  the  old :  in  descriptive 
pieces  like  "Keramos"  and  "The  Hanging  of 
the  Crane  ";  in  such  personal  and  "  occasional " 
verses  as  "The  Herons  of  Elmwood"  and  the 
noble  "Morituri  Salutamus";  and  finally  in 
sonnets,  —  like  those  upon  Chaucer,  Milton, 
the  "  Divina  Commedia,"  "A  Nameless  Grave," 
Felton,  Sumner,  " Nature,"  "My  Books,"  — 
which  are  already  secure  among  the  imperish 
able  treasures  of  the  English  language. 

There  is  no  formula  which  adequately  ex 
plains  and  comments  upon  such  a  career.  It  is 
apparent  that  Longfellow  possessed,  to  a  very 
notable  degree,  an  instinctive  literary  tact.  He 
knew,  by  a  gift  of  nature,  how  to  comport  him 
self  with  moods  and  words,  with  forms  of  prose 
and  verse,  with  the  traditions,  conventions,  un 
spoken  wishes  of  his  readers.  Literary  tact,  like 
social  tact,  is  more  easy  to  feel  than  to  define.  It 
does  not  depend  upon  learning,  for  professional 
scholars  conspicuously  lack  it.  Nor  does  it  turn 
upon  mental  power,  or  moral  quality.  Poe,  who 
could  not  live  among  men  without  making  ene 
mies,  moved  in  and  out  of  the  borderland  of 
prose  and  verse  with  the  inerrant  grace  of  a  wild 

C  13*] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

creature,  sure-footed  and  quick-eyed.  Lowell, 
whose  social  tact  could  be  so  perfect,  sometimes 
allowed  himself,  out  of  sheer  exuberance  of  spir 
its,  to  play  a  boyish  leap-frog  with  the  literary 
proprieties.  The  beautiful  genius  of  Emerson 
often  stood  tongue-tied  and  awkward,  confusing 
and  confused,  before  problems  of  literary  be 
havior  which  to  the  facile  talent  of  Dr.  Holmes 
were  as  simple  as  talking  across  a  dinner-table. 
But  Longfellow's  literary  tact  was  always  im 
peccable:  he  divined  what  could  and  could  not 
be  said  and  done  under  the  circumstances ;  he 
escorted  the  Muses  to  the  banquet  hall  without 
stepping  on  their  robes ;  he  met  the  unspoken 
thought  with  the  desired  word,  and — a  greater 
gift  than  this  —  he  knew  when  to  be  silent. 

It  is  possible  to  misjudge  this  fineness  of 
artistic  instinct,  this  professional  dexterity. 
Browning,  who  analyzed,  and  perhaps  over- 
analyzed,  Andrea  del  Sarto  as  the  "faultless 
painter,"  has,  by  dint  of  forcing  us  to  consider 
what  Andrea  lacked,  made  us  too  forgetful  of 
what  he  really  possessed.  Once  made  aware  of 
the  Florentine's  limitations  in  passion  and  imag 
ination,  we  tend,  under  the  spell  of  Browning's 
genius,  to  give  him  insufficient  credit  even  for 

[  133  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

his  grace  in  composition,  his  pleasant  coloring, 
his  suave  facility.  And  it  is  true  that  the  greatest 
painters  have  something  which  Andrea  some 
how  missed.  No  doubt  the  most  masterful  poets 
have  certain  qualities  which  we  do  not  find  in 
Longfellow.  But  that  is  no  reason  for  failing  to 
recognize  the  qualities  which  he  did  command 
in  well-nigh  flawless  perfection.  There  are  can 
did  readers,  unquestionably,  who  feel  that  they 
have  outgrown  him.  But  for  one,  I  can  never 
hear  such  a  confession  without  a  sort  of  pain.  It 
may  be  that  these  readers  are  naturally  passing 
on  from  room  to  room  of  the  endless  palace  of 
poetry.  It  may  be  that  they  seek  a  ruder,  more 
athletic  exercise  of  the  mind  than  Longfellow 
offers  them,  and  that  they  find  this  stimulus  in 
Browning  or  Whitman  or  Lucretius.  Concern 
ing  such  instinctive  preferences  there  can  be  no 
debate ;  the  world  of  letters  is  fortunately  very 
wide.  But  sometimes,  it  is  to  be  feared,  a  loss 
of  enjoyment  in  Longfellow  is  the  symbol  of  a 
lessening  love  for  what  is  simple,  graceful,  and 
refined. 

These  characteristics  of  Longfellow's  art 
were  rooted  in  his  nature.  Here  is  an  entry 
from  his  journal,  on  August  4,  1836:  "A  day 

[ 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

of  quiet  and  true  enjoyment,  travelling  from 
Thun  to  Entlebuch  on  our  way  to  Lucerne. 
The  time  glided  too  swiftly  away.  We  read  the 
'Genevieve'  of  Coleridge  and  the  '  Christa- 
bel '  and  many  scraps  of  song,  and  little  Ger 
man  ballads  of  Uhland,  simple  and  strange.  At 
noon  we  stopped  at  Langnau,  and  walked  into 
the  fields,  and  sat  down  by  a  stream  of  pure 
water  that  turned  a  mill ;  and  a  little  girl  came 
out  of  the  mill  and  brought  us  cherries ;  and 
the  shadow  of  the  trees  was  pleasant,  and  my 
soul  was  filled  with  peace  and  gladness."  Now 
adays  many  a  tourist  motors  through  Switzer 
land  without  ever  discovering  the  valley  of 
Langnau ;  or,  whirling  past  it,  has  no  desire  to 
rest  under  the  shadow  of  the  trees  by  that 
stream  of  pure  water.  Indeed,  it  would  be  fool 
ish  for  the  hurrying  tourist  to  tarry  there.  He 
would  not  find  in  himself,  as  Longfellow  did, 
a  new  peace  and  gladness ;  and  besides,  he  might 
miss  his  dinner  in  Lucerne. 

A  clear  transparency  of  spirit,  an  anima  Can 
dida  like  Virgil's,  an  unvarying  gentleness  and 
dignity  of  behavior :  these  were  the  traits  which 
endeared  Longfellow  to  those  who  knew  him. 
The  delicacy  of  his  literary  tact  was  one  secret 

C  135  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

of  his  welcome,  but  the  deeper  secret — though 
this  too  was  an  open  one  —  lay  in  the  beauty 
of  his  character.  There  could  be  no  better  il 
lustration  of  this  than  the  familiar  story  of  the 
pathetic  but  perfect  tribute  paid  by  Emerson, 
who,  broken  by  age,  and  with  a  memory  that 
had  almost  lapsed,  attended  Longfellow's  fu 
neral.  They  had  been  friends  for  nearly  forty 
years.  "I  do  not  remember  the  name  of  the 
gentleman  whose  funeral  we  have  attended/' 
he  said;  "but  he  had  a  beautiful  soul." 

Those  of  us  who  once  begged  for  Mr.  Long 
fellow's  autograph,  or  besieged,  shyly  or  bra 
zenly,  the  always  open  door  of  his  home,  can 
do  no  more  than  transmit  our  own  impression 
of  his  personality.  The  coming  generations  will 
select  their  own  poets,  in  obedience  to  some  in 
stinct  which  cannot  be  divined  by  us.  For  my 
self,  I  have  no  doubt  that  Americans,  in  a  far- 
distant  future,  will  look  back  to  the  author  of 
"  Evangeline  "  and  "Hiawatha"  as  we  look 
back  to  his  favorite  Walter  von  der  Vogel- 
weide,  a  Meistersinger  of  a  golden  age.  Now 
and  again,  very  likely,  he  may  be  neglected.  He 
is  already  thought  negligible  by  some  clever 

[  136] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

young  men  of  over-educated  mind  and  under- 
educated  heart,  who  borrow  their  ethics  from 
the  cavemen,  their  pragmatic  philosophy  from 
the  drifting  raft-men,  and  who,  in  the  presence 
of  the  same  material  from  which  Longfellow 
wrought  delightful  poetry, — the  same  land 
scape,  the  same  rich  past  and  ardent  present 
and  all  the  "long  thoughts"  of  youth, —  are 
themselves  impotent  to  produce  a  single  line. 

But  Longfellow's  reputation  may  be  trusted 
to  safer  hands  than  theirs.  There  can  be  no 
happier  fortune  than  that  which  has  made  him 
the  children's  poet.  These  wise  little  people 
know  so  well  what  they  like !  They  are  untrou 
bled  with  scruples  and  hesitancies.  With  how 
sure  an  instinct  do  they  feel — without  com 
prehending  or  analyzing — the  note  of  true 
poetry!  Will  Stevenson  be  one  of  the  enduring 
writers?  I  look  at  his  twenty-five  volumes  in 
shining  red  and  gold,  and  cannot  tell;  but  when 
I  hear  a  child  murmuring  "  My  Shadow,"  I 
think  I  know.  If  there  were  a  language  for  such 
childish  secrets,  the  sweet  voices  that  recite  with 
delicious  solemnity  "The  Children's  Hour" 
might  tell  us  more  about  Longfellow  than  we 
professional  critics  —  with  our  meticulous 

[ 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

pedantry,  our  scrutiny  of  "  sources,"  our  ears 
so  trained  to  detect  over-tones  that  we  lose  the 
melody  —  shall  ever  learn. 

The  children  go  to  the  heart  of  the  matter. 
And  so  do  many  of  those  larger  children  —  the 
men  and  women  of  simple  soul  who  keep  an 
unsophisticated  way  of  looking  at  the  world. 
There  are  some  very  highly  organized  persons 
who  amuse  themselves  with  poetry  as  they 
would  with  chess,  or  Comparative  Religion,  or 
"  The  Shaving  of  Shagpat."  They  can  criticise 
and  expound  verses,  and  invent  theories  of  po 
etics,  and  compile  anthologies.  But  these  val 
uable  members  of  the  intellectual  community 
are  not  the  real  readers  of  poetry.  To  find  the 
true  audience  of  a  Heine,  a  Tennyson,  a  Long 
fellow,  you  are  not  to  look  in  the  Social  Regis 
ter.  You  must  seek  out  the  shy  boy  and  girl 
who  live  on  dull  streets  and  hill  roads  —  no 
matter  where,  so  long  as  the  road  to  dreamland 
leads  from  their  gate ;  you  must  seek  the  work 
ing-girls  and  shopkeepers,  the  "schoolteachers 
and  country  ministers"  who  put  and  kept  Long 
fellow's  friend  Sumner  in  the  Senate ;  you  must 
make  a  census  of  the  lonely,  uncounted  souls 
who  possess  the  treasures  of  the  humble.  These 

[  138] 


THE  CENTENARY  OF  LONGFELLOW 

readers  are  sadly  ignorant  of  Ibsen  and  Bernard 
Shaw  and  Fogazzaro;  but  when  the  conversa 
tion  shifts  to  Shakespeare  they  brighten  up. 
They  know  their  Shakespeare,  and  they  know 
Longfellow.  They  are  sometimes  described  as 
the  intellectual "  middle  class  " ;  but  a  poet  may 
well  say,  as  a  President  of  the  United  States 
once  said  of  a  camp-meeting  at  Ocean  Grove, 
"  Give  me  the  support  of  those  people,  and  I 
can  snap  my  fingers  at  the  rest." 

It  is  folly  to  worship  numbers.  But  it  is  a 
deeper  folly  not  to  perceive  that  among  the  un 
critical  masses  there  may  be  a  right  instinct  for 
the  essence  of  poetry.  It  is  glory  enough  for 
Longfellow  that  he  is  read  by  the  same  persons 
who  still  read  Robert  Burns  and  the  Plays  of 
Shakespeare  and  the  English  Bible.  Until  sim 
plicity  and  reverence  go  wholly  out  of  fashion 
he  will  continue  to  be  read.  In  that  quaint 
Flemish  city  which  Longfellow's  verses  have 
helped  to  make  famous  there  is  a  tiny  room, 
in  the  Hospital  of  St.  John,  in  which  are  treas 
ured  some  of  the  loveliest  pictures  of  Hans 
Memling.  The  years  come  and  go,  in  Bruges; 
the  streets  and  canals  grow  quieter  here,  noisier 
there,  than  they  used  to  be;  the  belfry  that 

[  139] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Longfellow  admired  looks  down  to-day  on  ad 
vertisements  of  Sunlight  Soap  and  American 
Petroleum.  Yet  in  that  hushed  room  in  the 
inner  courtyard  of  the  Hospital,  visitors  still 
linger  entranced,  as  of  old,  over  Memling's 
Marriage  of  St.  Catherine,  his  Adoration  of  the 
Magi,  and  his  Shrine  of  St.  Ursula.  Purity  of 
color  and  of  line  are  there,  delicate  brush-work, 
a  charming  fancy,  a  clear  serenity  of  spirit ;  they 
are  masterpieces  of  a  born  painter  whose  nature 
was  also  that  of  the  dreamer,  the  story-teller, 
the  devotee.  There  are  Venetian  and  Roman 
painters  far  greater  than  Hans  Memling.  And 
there  are  poets  whose  strength  of  wing  and 
fiery  energy  of  imagination  are  beyond  Long 
fellow's.  But  no  truer  poet  ever  lived. 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 


OF  Tl 

UNIVEF 

of 


Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich 

ON  the  day  when  he  last  entered  the  Atlantic 
office,  in  January,  1907,  Mr.  Aldrich  seemed, 
for  the  first  time,  to  have  grown  old.  One  of 
his  friends  spoke  of  it,  as  he  went  out.  Up  to 
that  morning,  the  weight  of  seventy  years  had 
scarcely  seemed  to  touch  the  erect,  jaunty  figure. 
The  lines  that  time  had  written  around  his  clear 
blue  eyes  and  firm  mouth  conveyed  no  hint  of 
senility.  His  hair  was  scarcely  gray.  His  voice, 
slightly  husky  in  its  graver,  sweeter  tones,  re 
tained  a  delicious  youthful  crispness  as  it  curled 
and  broke,  wave-like,  into  flashing  raillery.  He 
had  just  completed  his  poem  for  the  Longfellow 
centenary,  his  first  verse  after  some  years  of  si 
lence  ;  and  when  it  was  praised  to  his  face  —  for 
who  could  help  praising  it!  —  he  blushed  with 
pleasure  like  a  boy.  Yet  he  had  passed  three 
score  and  ten,  and  the  shadow,  invisible  as  yet 
and  quite  unheralded,  was  drawing  very  near. 

[  143  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

For  many  years  he  had  been  wont  to  visit 
more  or  less  regularly  the  editorial  room  which 
still  claimed  his  name  and  fame  as  one  of  its 
treasured  possessions.  Perched  upon  the  edge 
of  a  chair,  as  if  about  to  take  flight,  he  would 
often  linger  by  the  hour,  to  the  delight  of  his 
listeners.  His  caustic  wit  played  around  every 
topic  of  conversation.  He  did  not  disdain  the 
veriest  "shop-talk"  concerning  printers*  errors 
and  the  literary  fashions  of  the  hour.  "  Look  at 
those  boys!"  he  exclaimed  once,  as  he  picked 
up  an  illustrated  periodical  containing  the  por 
traits  of  a  couple  of  that  month's  beardless 
novelists.  "When  I  began  to  write,  we  waited 
twenty  years  before  we  had  our  pictures  printed ; 
but  nowadays  these  young  fellows  have  them 
selves  photographed  before  they  even  sit  down 
to  write  their  book."  Himself  a  fastidious  com 
poser  and  reviser,  Mr.  Aldrich  was  severely 
critical  of  current  magazine  literature.  "  That 
was  a  well-written  essay,"  he  once  said  of  an  At 
lantic  contribution  which  he  liked, "  but  you  will 
find  that  you  used  a  superfluous  cof'  upon  the 
second  page."  It  was  very  rarely  that  he  praised 
a  contemporary  poem.  Mr.  S.  V.  Cole's  "  In 
ViaMerulana"  and  some  of  the  exquisite  lyrics 

[   144  ] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

of  Father  Tabb  are  the  only  verses  of  recent 
years  which  I  now  recall  as  having  won  his  un 
qualified  approbation.  More  than  once  I  have 
heard  him  declare  that  he  would  have  rejected 
Mr.  Kipling's  "Recessional"  if  it  had  been 
offered  to  the  Atlantic,  —  so  extreme  was  his 
dislike  for  one  or  two  harsh  lines  in  that  justly 
celebrated  poem.  The  one  American  poem 
which  he  would  have  most  liked  to  write,  was, 
he  said,  Emerson's  "Bacchus/'  —  where,  amid 
inimitable  felicities,  there  are  surely  harsh  lines 
enough. 

One  of  the  most  pleasant  traits  of  Mr.  Al- 
drich's  comments  upon  men  of  letters  was  his 
unfailing  respect  and  admiration  for  the  well- 
known  group  of  New  England  writers  whose 
personal  friendship  he  had  enjoyed.  His  gift 
for  witty  derogation  found  employment  else 
where;  towards  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Whit- 
tier,  and  Lowell  his  attitude  was  finely  reverent, 
as  befitted  a  younger  associate.  H  e  was  fond  of 
retelling  that  anecdote  of  his  own  boyish  daring 
which  appears  in  his  "  Ponkapog  Papers,"  to 
the  effect  that  when  first  entering  James  T. 
Fields's  office  in  the  Old  Corner  Bookstore, 
his  eyes  fell  upon  that  kindly  editor  and  pub- 

[  '45  ]  ' 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

lisher's  memorandum  book,  open  on  the  table. 
Mr.  Fields  was  absent  for  the  moment,  and  the 
youthful  poet  could  not  help  noticing  the  im 
pressive  list  of  agenda :  "Don't  forget  to  mail 
R.  W.  E.  his  contract,"— "Don't  forget  O. 
W.  H.'s  proofs,"  etc.  Whereupon  the  " young 
Milton,"  who  certainly  deserved  to  succeed  in 
his  profession,  wrote  upon  the  memorandum 
book, "  Don't  forget  to  accept  T.  B.  A.'s  poem," 
and  disappeared.  The  poem  was  accepted,  paid 
for,  and,  truest  kindness  of  all, — as  Mr.  Al- 
drich  asserted, — was  never  printed.  But  the 
resourceful  youth  never  lost  his  deferential  at 
titude  toward  the  bearers  of  those  famous  ini 
tialed  names  that  had  once  preceded  his  own. 

Of  his  early  literary  friendships  with  the  New 
York  set  of  writers  in  his  "Home  Journal"  and 
"Mirror"  days  he  often  talked  entertainingly, 
and  in  a  freer  vein.  He  knew  Whitman,  for 
example,  and  liked  him  personally,  although  he 
would  never  admit  that  Whitman  was  a  poet 
except  by  virtue  of  here  and  there  a  single 
phrase.  Many  a  time  has  the  present  writer  en 
deavored  to  convert  Mr.  Aldrich  from  this  state 
of  heathen  blindness  as  to  Whitman's  genius, 
but  the  debates  used  to  end  illogically  with  Mr. 

[  146  ] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

Aldrich's  delightful  story  of  a  certain  nine  dol 
lars  which  Whitman  once  borrowed  from  him 
—  magnificently,  but  alas,  irrevocably  —  in 
PfafFs  genial  restaurant  on  Broadway.  Never 
did  Aldrich  appear  more  truly  the  poet  than  in 
these  light  reminiscent  touches  upon  the  varied 
adventures  of  his  youth.  He  had  gone  out 
against  the  Philistines  armed  with  no  weapon 
except  a  finely  pointed  pen.  He  had  written 
no  line  dishonorably,  or  unworthily  of  his 
craftsman's  conscience.  He  had  compelled  re 
cognition,  and  taken  his  seat  unchallenged 
among  the  choicest  company  of  American  men 
of  letters.  It  amused  him  to  look  back  upon 
his  early  career  as  a  struggling  journalist,  to 

Chirp  over  days  in  a  garret, 
Chuckle  o'er  increase  of  salary, 
Taste  the  good  fruits  of  our  leisure, 
Talk  about  pencil  and  lyre,  — 
And  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

He  neither  forgot  nor  forgave  some  of  his  old 
antagonists  in  that  journalistic  world  ;  but  one 
liked  him  all  the  better  for  the  sensitiveness  of 
nature  which  left  him  still  resentful  of  some  an 
cient  slight,  or  still  happily  mindful  of  a  com 
pliment  earned  when  he  was  twenty.  Few  of 

t  147  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

the  "irritable  tribe"  of  poets  could,  however, 
keep  themselves  more  perfectly  in  hand.  The 
cool  audacity  of  his  "Don't  forget  to  accept 
T.  B.  A.'s  poem"  ripened  into  an  easy  mastery 
of  many  of  the  arts  of  life.  His  gay  confidence, 
when  seated  among  his  friends  or  guests,  re 
minded  one  of  some  veteran  commander  of  an 
ocean  liner,  enjoying,  at  the  head  of  the  "cap 
tain's  table/'  the  deserved  deference  of  the 
company. 

Yet  he  seemed  the  poet,  likewise,  in  his  air 
of  detachment  from  the  immediate  concerns  of 
the  people  who  surrounded  him.  Thrown  by 
force  of  circumstances,  in  his  later  life,  into  the 
agreeable  society  of  the  idle  rich,  he  got  and 
gave  such  pleasures  as  are  only  there  obtain 
able;  but  he  never  abdicated  his  essential  citi 
zenship  among  the  dreamers  and  artists.  That 
he  would  have  produced  more  printer's  "copy" 
under  the  spur  of  harsh  necessity  is  easily  de 
monstrable,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  this 
conceivably  ampler  production  would  have  ex 
hibited  any  finer  quality  than  is  now  found  in 
the  prose  and  verse  of  his  collected  works.  He 
once  wrote  some  suggestive  verses  on  "The 
Flight  of  the  Goddess," — the  fickle  muse  who 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

loves  poets  in  their  garret  days  and  deserts  them 
in  prosperity.  But  these  verses  do  not  demand 
an  autobiographical  interpretation.  Mr.  Al- 
drich's  own  muse  was  of  a  long  constancy.  At 
nineteen  he  proved  his  kinship  with  the  rarest 
spirits  of  his  time,  and  for  the  next  half-century 
there  was  no  year  when  his  friends  and  readers 
would  not  have  spoken  of  him  primarily  as  a 
maker  of  poetry.  He  always  kept  some  avenue 
of  escape  from  the  prosaic.  In  his  boyhood  at 
Portsmouth  the  sea  was  ever  at  the  end  of  the 
street: — 

I  leave  behind  me  the  elm-shadowed  square 
And  carven  portals  of  the  silent  street, 
And  wander  on  with  listless,  vagrant  feet, 
Through  seaward-leading  alleys,  till  the  air 
Smells  of  the  sea,  and  straightway  then  the  care 
Slips  from  my  heart,  and  life  once  more  is  sweet. 
At  the  lane's  ending  lie  the  white-winged  fleet. 
O  restless  Fancy,  whither  wouldst  thou  fare  ? 
Here  are  brave  pinions  that  shall  take  thee  far  — 
Gaunt  hulks  of  Norway;  ships  of  red  Ceylon; 
Slim-masted  lovers  of  the  blue  Azores! 
*T  is  but  an  instance  hence  to  Zanzibar, 
Or  to  the  regions  of  the  Midnight  Sun; 
Ionian  isles  are  thine,  and  all  the  fairy  shores ! 

Besides  this  sea-longing,  so  inbred  in  the  na- 

[  149  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

tives  of  New  England  seaport  towns,  there  was 
some  delicate  strand  of  foreignness  among  the 
ancestral  fibres  of  Aldrich's  nature,  his  heritage 
from  that 

creature  soft  and  fine, 
From  Spain,  some  say,  some  say  from  France, 

whom  he  has  described  in  the  lines  entitled 
"  Heredity."  He  touches  this  thought  again 
in  his  sonnet  "Reminiscence"  :  — 

Though  I  am  native  to  this  frozen  zone 

That  half  the  twelvemonth  torpid  lies,  or  dead; 

Though  the  cold  azure  arching  overhead 

And  the  Atlantic's  never-ending  moan 

Are  mine  by  heritage,  I  must  have  known 

Life  otherwhere  in  epochs  long  since  fled; 

For  in  my  veins  some  Orient  blood  is  red, 

And  through  my  thought  are  lotus  blossoms  strown. 

It  was  fitting  that  three  years  of  his  impres 
sionable  youth  should  have  been  passed  in  the 
New  Orleans  of  the  forties,  where  the  rich  col 
oring  of  the  past  still  lingered,  and  where, 
though  Cotton  was  striving  to  be  king,  Ro 
mance  was  queen.  When  the  boy  was  brought 
back  to  Portsmouth  to  prepare  for  college,  he 
had  become,  as  "The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy" 
humorously  portrays,  the  veriest  Southern  fire- 

[  150  ] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

eater.  His  counting-room  experiences  in  New 
York — which  followed  the  abandonment  of 
his  college  career  upon  his  father's  death  in 
1849  —  a^so  brought  him  into  touch  with  ways 
of  life  quite  alien  to  those  of  his  New  Hamp 
shire  birthplace.  Before  he  was  twenty  he  had 
graduated  from  the  counting-room  into  the 
Broadway  school  of  journalists  and  poets,  and 
had  issued  his  first  volume  of  verse,  "  The 
Bells,  by  T.  B.  A."  This  was  in  1855,  the 
year  of  Whittier's  "  Barefoot  Boy"  and  Whit 
man's  "  Leaves  of  Grass."  Aldrich's  first  vol 
ume  is  now  a  rarity,  and  all  of  its  nearly  fifty 
pieces — with  their  echoes  of  Chatterton,  Tom 
Moore,  Poe,  and  Longfellow — have  disap 
peared  from  the  standard  editions  of  his  Poems. 

Two  years  later,  in  November,  1857,  ap 
peared  the  first  number  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly.  I  have  before  me  a  yellowing  note 
written  by  Aldrich,  in  the  following  May,  to 
F.  H.  Underwood,  who  was  then  acting  as 
Lowell's  assistant  upon  the  magazine.  Under 
wood,  at  his  chiePs  request,1  had  returned  one 
of  Aldrich's  poems  with  some  suggestions  as 
to  changes  in  wording. 

1  Lowell's  letter  to  Underwood  is  printed  on  p.  264. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

HOME  JOURNAL  OFFICE,  May  25,  1858. 
DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  been  trying  for  the  last 
hour  to  alter  the  "  Blue  Bell "  verses.  "Mute 
worshipers  of  Christ"  is  simply  bad;  but 
"dawning"  and  "morning"  form  a  perfect 
rhyme  when  we  remember  the  "fancies  "  and 
"pansies  "  of  the  old  poets.  It  has  taken  you 
some  time  to  find  out  that  such  rhymes  are 
inadmissible ;  but  you  seem  to  have  good  au 
thority  in  the  following  pasquinade,  which  I 
clip  from  the  "Boston  Post"  of  May  24:  — 

Poet.  I  'm  sure  I  have  an  ear! 

Editor.   No  doubt!  —  I've  known  a  poet  with  a  pair, 
And  very  long  ones  —  who  was  not  aware 
That  '  morn  '  and  '  dawn  '  have  not  the  proper 

chime, 
By  a  long  shot,  to  make  a  decent  rhyme. 

As  I  cannot  make  the  changes  you  require, 
I  shall,  of  course,  retain  my  verses. 
Yours,  etc., 

T.  B.  ALDRICH. 

Mr.  F.  H.  UNDERWOOD. 

Having  thus  vindicated  his  dignity,  the 
youthful  bard,  who  was  himself  assistant  editor 
of  the  "  Home  Journal,"  apparently  continued 
to  reflect  upon  the  Atlantic's  suggestion.  But 

[  152] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

he  did  not  yield  at  once.  In  the  Carleton  edi 
tion  of  his  Poems,  1863, "The  Blue  Bells  of 
New  England"  contains  the  erring  stanza:  — 

All  night  your  eyes  are  closed  in  sleep, 

But  open  at  the  dawning; 
Such  simple  faith  as  yours  can  see 
God's  coming  in  the  morning. 

In  the  Ticknor  and  Fields*  Blue  and  Gold 
edition  of  1865,  however,  the  second  line  of  the 
stanza  becomes 

Kept  fresh  for  day's  adorning, 

no  doubt  to  Mr.  Underwood's  satisfaction. 
Aldrich's  first  poetical  contribution  to  the  At 
lantic  was  "Pythagoras,"  in  June,  1860;  his  first 
story,  which  excited  Hawthorne's  curiosity  as 
to  the  author,  and  prompted  some  beautiful 
words  of  praise  from  the  romancer,  was  "  Pere 
Antoine's  Date-Palm :  a  Legend  of  New  Or 
leans,"  in  June,  1862. 

The  letter  to  Underwood  reveals  one  trait 
which  Aldrich  possessed  in  common  with  Ten 
nyson,  his  chief  master  and  guide  in  the  art  of 
poetry.  Both  men  were  quick  to  profit  by  ad 
verse  criticism.  Some  American  scholar  will  ulti 
mately,  no  doubt,  edit  Aldrich's  youthful  poems, 
as  Mr.  Churton  Collins  has  edited  the  earliest 

[  '53  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

work  of  Tennyson,  with  the  aim  of  showing,  by 
means  of  the  successive  verbal  alterations,  the 
tireless  patience  and  acquired  cunning  of  the 
born  craftsman  in  verse.  The  files  of  the  At 
lantic  will  yield  him  two  striking  illustrations, 
drawn  from  Aldrich's  maturer  work.  In  De 
cember,  1874,  Edgar  Fawcett,  in  reviewing  his 
poems,  quoted  approvingly  "  The  Lunch,"  — 
a  dozen  lines  of  genre  painting  in  the  Keats- 
Tennyson  manner,  closing  as  follows :  — 

Two  China  cups  with  golden  tulips  sunny, 
And  rich  inside  with  chocolate  like  honey; 
And  she  and  I  the  banquet-scene  completing 
With  dreamy  words,  —  and  very  pleasant  eating ! 

The  critic  remarked  that  the  last  four  words 
marred  the  spirit  of  ethereal  daintiness  till  then 
so  deliciously  apparent.  Whereupon  Mr.  Al- 
drich,  with  the  happiest  aptitude  for  taking 
second  thought,  substituted  the  present  version 
of  the  last  line, — 

With  dreamy  words,  and  fngers  shyly  meeting. 

Again,  in  January,  1877,  Mr.  Howells, 
whose  unsigned  Atlantic  criticisms  of  Aldrich's 
successive  volumes  are  models  of  friendly  tact 
and  delicate  instruction,  quoted  the  quatrain 
"Masks":  — 

[   154] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

Black  Tragedy  lets  slip  her  grim  disguise 
And  shows  you  laughing  lips  and  roguish  eyes; 
But  when,  unmasked,  gay  Comedy  appears, 
*T  is  ten  to  one  you  find  the  girl  in  tears. 

Mr.  Howells  suggested  that  the  strong  effect 
in  the  last  line  was  weakened  by  what  seemed  to 
him  a  mistaken  colloquiality ;  and  in  the  "  Com 
plete  Poems"  the  line  now  reads, — 

How  wan  her  cbeeks  are,  and  what  heavy  tears. 

We  must  not  linger  over  such  details.  They 
will  serve  for  concrete  illustration  of  the  qualities 
which  made  Aldrich  respected  and  admired  by 
his  fellow-writers.  By  1865,  the  year  of  his  mar 
riage  and  removal  to  Boston  as  the  editor  of 
"Every  Saturday"  for  Ticknor  and  Fields,  he 
was  already  widely  known  as  the  author  of  re 
fined  and  tender  verse,  as  a  capable  and  shrewd 
editorial  worker,  and  as  a  clever  man  of  the 
world.  His  new  employers  printed  his  Poems 
in  one  of  their  celebrated  Blue  and  Gold  edi 
tions.  For  the  latitude  of  Boston  this  was  com 
parable  to  an  election  to  the  French  Academy. 
Aldrich  was  not  yet  thirty.  Rarely  has  there 
been  a  more  fortunate  Return  of  the  Native. 
And  nevertheless,  although  he  was  to  be  iden 
tified  with  Boston  henceforward  until  the  end 

[  155] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

of  his  life,  he  was  never  to  lose  his  engaging  air 
of  detachment  from  New  England's  cherished 
enterprises.  He  cared  no  more  for  the  practical 
later  phases  of  Transcendentalism  than  for  the 
earlier  speculative  ones.  The  various  "re 
forms,"  philanthropies,  "causes,"  of  his  excel 
lent  neighbors  did  not  interest  him  deeply. 
The  intellectual  and  social  evolution  of  New 
England  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  not  to  be  traced  in  his  poetry  or  his 
prose.  His  favorite  reading  at  the  time  of  his 
Atlantic  editorship  was  French  novels.  The 
sombre  inland  New  England  of  our  own  school 
of  short-story  writers, — the  gaunt  pastures,  the 
lonely  white  farm-houses,  the  fierce  emotional 
energy,  the  tragedies  of  baffled  will  and  thwarted 
natural  instincts, — all  this  was  foreign  to  the 
happy  sensuousness  of  his  nature. 

The  fifteen  years  following  1865  were  ^1- 
drich's  most  productive  period.  For  nine  years 
he  edited  "  Every  Saturday."  He  wrote  for 
",Our  Young  Folks  "  the  most  popular  of  all 
his  books,  that "  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy  "  in  which 
Portsmouth  is  pictured  under  the  name  of 
Rivermouth,  and  Tom  Bailey  is  but  the  thin 
nest  of  disguises  for  the  youthful  Aldrich.  Some 

[  156] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

of  the  Atlantic's  present  readers  rememberwait- 
ing  eagerly  for  the  next  installment  of  "The 
Bad  Boy  ";  if  they  will  read  it  over  again,  after 
an  interval  of  nearly  forty  years,  they  will  find 
that  Binny  Wallace's  drifting  out  to  sea  has 
lost  nothing  of  its  pathos,  and  that  the  fight 
between  Tom  Bailey  and  Conway  is  just  as 
glorious  a  combat  as  of  old.  Aldrich's  tech 
nique  as  a  writer  of  the  short  story  has  not  been 
excelled  by  that  of  any  American,  even  by  Poe, 
although  he  ventured  upon  no  daring  atmos 
pheric  effects  and  did  not  go  far  afield  for  his 
characters.  He  loved  to  mystify  the  inexperi 
enced  reader,  and  he  arranged  some  neatly  sur 
prising  denouments.  "  Marjorie  Daw,"  his  best- 
known  short  story,  is  a  classic  example  of  this 
swift  and  astonishing  "  curtain."  "  There  is  n't 
any  Marjorie  Daw  ! "  Neither  is  there  any  Miss 
Mehetable's  Son  ;  Mademoiselle  Olympe  Za- 
briski  is  a  youth  whose  beard  is  getting  too  much 
for  him;  the  fierce  cc  Goliath"  turns  out  to  be 
a  little  panting  tremulous  wad  of  a  lap-dog; 
"  Our  new  neighbors  at  Ponkapog  "  are  only 
a  pair  of  orioles ;  and  the  charming  Mrs.  Rose 
Mason  of  "  Two  Bites  at  a  Cherry  "  proves, 
to  the  consternation  of  both  hero  and  reader, 

[  157] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

to  have  married  again  !  Aldrich  was  too  clever 
a  workman  to  rely  exclusively  upon  his  favorite 
method.  "A  Sea  Turn,"  one  of  his  latest  sto 
ries,  is  a  flawless  handling  of  the  comedy  of 
situation ;  he  wrote  humorous  and  pathetic  char 
acter  sketches  in  the  style  of  Irving  and  Haw 
thorne  ;  and  in  "  Quite  So  "  and  "  The  White 
Feather"  he  touches  with  admirable  restraint 
upon  poignant  tragedies  of  the  Civil  War. 

"  Prudence  Palfrey,"  "  The  Queen  of  Sheba," 
and  "A  Stillwater  Tragedy"  —  all  of  which 
first  appeared  as  Atlantic  serials  —  exhibit  Al- 
drich's  deft  mastery  of  prose  and  his  skill  in 
composing  a  species  of  tale  halfway  between 
romance  and  actuality.  "Semi-idyllic  "was  Mr. 
Howells's  word  for  "  Prudence  Palfrey  "  in 
1874;  "in  fact,"  he  added,  "the  New  Eng 
land  novel  does  not  exist."  "  A  Modern  In 
stance"  and  "  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham"  had 
not  then  been  written.  Whatever  one  may 
think  of  the  intellectual  or  imaginative  limita 
tions  of  the  type  of  fiction  which  Aldrich  here 
attempted,  the  details  of  these  longer  stories 
are  wrought  with  the  artistry  of  a  poet.  Ride 
out  of  Rivermouth  on  a  June  morning  with 
Edward  Lynde  :  "Now  and  then,  as  he  passed 

[  158] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

a  farm  house,  a  young  girl  hanging  out  clothes 
in  the  front  yard  —  for  it  was  on  a  Monday  — 
would  pause  with  a  shapeless  snowdrift  in  her 
hand  to  gaze  curiously  at  the  apparition  of  a 
gallant  young  horseman."  This  is  no  longer 
Rockingham  County,  New  Hampshire;  we  are 
in  Arcadia.  Some  connoisseur  of  women  ought 
to  collect  the  adorable  vignettes  that  are  scat 
tered  everywhere  through  Aldrich's  prose ; 
Marjorie  Daw  in  the  hammock,  swaying  "like 
a  pond-lily  in  the  golden  afternoon";  Martha 
Hilton,  "  with  a  lip  like  a  cherry  and  a  cheek 
like  a  tea-rose "  ;  Margaret  Slocum's  eyes, 
"  fringed  with  such  heavy  lashes  that  the  girl 
seemed  always  to  be  in  half-mourning";  Mrs. 
Rose  Mason,  with  her  "  long  tan-colored  gloves 
—  Rue  de  la  Paix  "  —  in  the  chill  and  gloom 
of  the  Naples  Cathedral ;  Anglice,  "  a  blonde 
girl,  with  great  eyes  and  a  voice  like  the  soft 
notes  of  a  vesper  hymn  " ;  or  young  Mrs.  New- 
bury, "  looking  distractingly  cool  and  edible  — 
something  like  celery — in  her  widow's  weeds." 
All  of  Aldrich  —  save  what  is  disclosed  upon 
the  highest  levels  of  his  poetry  —  is  in  that 
witty,  charming,  delicately  sensuous  descrip 
tion  of  young  Mrs.  Newbury.  No  other  prose 

[  159] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

written  in  his  generation  has  quite  the  same 
combination  of  qualities;  but  if  Alphonse 
Daudet  had  been  born  in  Portsmouth  and 
compelled  to  write  serials  for  a  decorous  Bos 
ton  magazine,  Aldrich  might  have  found  a 
rival  in  his  own  field. 

It  was  to  this  matured  and  versatile  talent 
that  the  conduct  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
was  intrusted,  upon  Mr.  Howells's  resignation 
in  1 8 8 1 .  For  nine  years  Mr.  Aldrich  sat  in  his 
tiny  editorial  room  overlooking  the  Granary 
Burying  Ground,  reading  manuscripts,  scan 
ning  proof-sheets, — though  he  delegated  more 
of  this  drudgery  than  his  contributors  supposed, 
—  and  making  witty  remarks  to  his  assistant. 
He  had  the  comforts  —  both  before  and  since 
his  time  considered  too  Capuan  for  an  Atlantic 
editor  in  office  hours  —  of  a  pipe  and  a  red 
Irish  setter.  Once  the  setter  ate  up  a  sonnet. 
"  How  should  be  know  it  was  doggerel  ?  "  ex 
claimed  Mr.  Aldrich  compassionately.  He  had 
leisure  for  frequent  travel  abroad,  and  for  the 
cementing  of  many  delightful  friendships.  Pe 
culiarly  happy  in  his  home  life,  he  cultivated  a 
gracious  hospitality.  His  editorial  reign,  as  one 
looks  back  upon  it,  was  not  so  much  Capuan 
[  160] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

as  Saturnian.  The  Literature  of  Exposure  had 
not  yet  been  born,  and  the  manners  of  the 
market-place  were  not  thought  good  form  in 
magazine  offices.  Mr.  Aldrich  printed  poems 
by  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Whittier,  Lowell, 
Dante  Rossetti,  Stedman,  and  Sill,  with  an 
occasional  lyric  of  his  own.  Henry  James, 
Thomas  Hardy,  Miss  Murfree,  Arthur  S. 
Hardy,  Miss  Jewett,  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps, 
Marion  Crawford,  and  Mrs.  Oliphant  were 
among  the  writers  of  fiction.  John  Burroughs 
and  Bradford  Torrey  wrote  outdoor  papers. 
Parkman  and  Fiske  contributed  historical  ar 
ticles.  Now  and  then  appeared  articles  by 
H.  D.  Lloyd,  Edward  Atkinson,  Richard  T. 
Ely,  Laurence  Laughlin,  and  Walter  H.  Page, 
in  token  that  the  "  age  of  economists,"  which 
Burke  dreaded,  was  close  at  hand.  But  the  dis 
tinctive  note  of  the  Atlantic  in  the  eighties  was 
its  literary  criticism,  contributed  by  a  group  of 
reviewers  who  often  preferred  to  write  anony 
mously.  Their  criticisms  maintained  a  more  se 
vere  standard  than  that  of  any  critical  periodical 
in  the  country  except  the  "Nation,"  and  they 
exhibited  a  combination  of  learning  with  ur 
banity,  which,  with  the  present  development 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

of  specialization  among  scholars,  seems  to  be 
growing  more  and  more  rare. 

It  would  be  idle  to  search  the  eighteen  vol 
umes  of  the  Atlantic  edited  by  Mr.  Aldrich 
for  any  very  plain  indication  of  his  personality, 
except  his  fondness  for  clear,  competent,  and 
workmanlike  writing.  Contributions  poured 
into  his  little  office,  and  he  made  such  selec 
tions  as  he  saw  fit.  It  was  before  the  day  of 
Wild  West  feats  of  editorial  chase,  capture, 
and  exhibition.  The  Atlantic  was  like  a  stanch 
ship  sailing  a  well-charted  course,  and  Aldrich, 
who  was  fond  enough  of  salt  water  and  knew 
how  to  steer,  took  his  trick  at  the  wheel  with 
pleasure.  Some  of  the  unkindly  necessities  in 
cident  to  his  vocation  naturally  irritated  him. 
He  disliked  to  give  pain.  "  Here  goes  for 
making  twenty  more  enemies,"  he  was  wont 
to  say  as  he  sat  down  in  the  morning  at  his 
desk.  When  urged  by  the  present  writer  to 
prepare  some  account  of  his  editorship  for  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  number  of  the  Atlantic,  he 
said  that  if  he  told  anything  he  would  like  to 
tell  the  story  of  the  warlike  contributor  who 
once  threatened  him  with  personal  violence, 
but  who,  upon  being  challenged  by  the  editor 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

to  appear  at  Park  Street  to  make  good  his 
threat,  failed  to  come  to  time.  As  Mr.  Aldrich 
described  this  imminent  encounter  of  a  score 
of  years  ago,  his  blue  eyes  flashed  fire,  and  one 
could  see  little  Tom  Bailey,  with  both  eyes 
blinded  by  big  Conway,  standing  up  to  him, 
and  thrashing  him  too,  on  the  playground  at 
Rivermouth.  Here  is  the  contributor's  letter, 
preserved  by  Mr.  Aldrich  and  printed  at  his 
desire. 

T.  B.  ALDRICH, 

Editor  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 
No.  4  Park  Street, 
Boston. 

SIR:  —  On  the  24th  day  of  February  and 
again  on  the  yth  inst.  I  gave  you  opportunity 
to  apologize  for  the  willfully  offensive  manner 
in  which  you  treated  me  in  relation  to  my  manu 
script  entitled  Shakespeare  s  Viola. 

You  retained  that  manuscript  nearly  seven 
weeks.  Then  you  returned  it  and  expressed  your 
regret  that  you  could  not  accept  it. 

That  is  to  say,  you  intended  to  deceive  me  by 
the  inference  that  the  manuscript  was  declined  on 
its  merits. 

The  truth  was  and  is  you  did  not  read  it  nor 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

even  open  the  package.  Therefore  you  could  not 
judge  its  merits  nor  say,  with  truth,  that  you 
regretted  to  decline  it. 

You  decline  to  apologize. 

My  robust  nature  abhors  your  disgusting 
duplicity.  You  are  a  vulgar,  unblushing  Rascal 
and  an  impudent  audacious  Liar. 

Which  I  am  prepared  to  maintain  any  where, 
any  time.  You  ought  to  be  publicly  horse 
whipped.  Nothing  would  gratify  me  more  than 
to  give  you  a  sounder  thrashing  than  any  you 
have  yet  received. 

Moreover  I  am  determined  that  the  Literary 
Public  shall  know  what  a  putrid  scoundrel  and 
Liar  you  are. 

BOSTON,  March  30,  1887. 

Then  follows,  in  Aldrich's  beautiful  open 
handwriting,  the  penciled  comment :  "  The  gen 
tleman  with  the  'robust  nature*  was  politely 
invited  to  call  at  No.  4  Park  St.  on  any  day  that 
week  between  9  A.  M.  and  3  P.  M.  ;  but  the  'ro 
bust  nature '  failed  to  materialize." 

One  smiles  at  such  things,  of  course;  but  now 
that  Mr.  Aldrich  is  gone  from  the  places  that 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

once  knew  him,  it  is  these  trivialities,  rather  than 
his  accomplishment  and  his  fame,  that  come  first 
to  the  mind.  Perhaps  it  is  the  very  security  of 
his  fame  which  lends  to  these  anecdotal  mem 
ories  of  his  editorship  a  sort  of  ironic  relief. 
"The  power  of  writing  one  fine  line,"  said 
Edward  FitzGerald,  "  transcends  all  the  Able- 
Editor  ability  in  the  ably-edited  universe." 
Aldrich  wrote  not  merely  one  fine  line,  but  hun 
dreds  of  them,  and  it  is  inconceivable  that  they 
will  all  pass  out  of  human  memory.  Time,  which 
is  sure  to  winnow  so  sternly  the  work  of  the  more 
famous  New  England  poets,  will  find  that  Al 
drich  has  done  most  of  the  winnowing  himself. 
The  text  of  his  "Complete  Poems"  represents 
his  own  final  choice  of  what  was  most  excellent. 
In  his  lighter  vein  he  was  acknowledged  to  be 
unrivaled  upon  this  side  of  the  water.  But  even 
the  fairylike  daintiness  of  "Latakia,"  "Cory- 
don,"  "  At  a  Reading,"  "  Pampina,"  "  Palabras 
Carinosas,"  and  "A  Petition,"  or  the  pure  lyri 
cism  of  "A  Nocturne,"  "Pillared  Arch,"  "I  '11 
not  confer  with  Sorrow,"  and  "  Imogen,"  and 
still  more  the  popular  "  Baby  Bell,"  —  written, 
like  Rossetti's  "  Blessed  Damozel,"  at  nineteen, 
—  fail  to  represent  the  full  power  of  his  ripened 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

mind  and  art.  There  is  a  deeper  note  in  his  lines 
in  memory  of  Bayard  Taylor  and  upon  Booth's 
portrait,  in  "  Sea-Longings,"  "At  the  Funeral 
of  a  Minor  Poet,"  and  the  startling  verses, 
"  Identity."  The  darker  questionings  that  oc 
casionally  shadowed  the  sunny  Greek  sky  of 
Aldrich's  fancy  are  reflected  in  "An  Untimely 
Thought,"  "Apparitions,"  and  "Prescience." 
No  American  poet  save  Longfellow  has  writ 
ten  such  perfect  sonnets  as  "  I  vex  me  not," 
"  Sleep,"  "  Fredericksburg,"  "  Enamored  ar 
chitect  of  airy  rhyme,"  "Andromeda,"  and 
others  not  inferior  to  these.  Indifferent  as  he 
was  toward  public  affairs,  the  memories  of  the 
Civil  War  inspired  two  of  his  elegiac  pieces, 
"Spring  in  New  England"  and  the  "Ode  on 
the  Shaw  Memorial."  He  was  stirred  to  the  com 
position  of  a  fine  sonnet  upon  reading  William 
Watson's  splendid  poetical  invective  against  the 
Armenian  outrages.  "  Unguarded  Gates  "  was 
the  result  of  many  weeks  of  excitement,  quite 
unusual  with  him,  over  the  national  dangers  in 
volved  in  unrestricted  immigration.  But  these 
were  almost  his  only  excursions  into  the  field 
of  communal  verse,  whether  political  or  social. 
The  one  great  personal  sorrow  of  his  life,  the 
[  166] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

death  of  his  son  Charles  in  1904,  came  after  his 
work  as  a  poet  was  finished. 

Aldrich  wrote  Tennysonian  blank  verse  with 
consummate  skill,  as  may  be  seen  in  "  Wynd- 
ham  Towers,"  "White  Edith,"  and  other  nar 
rative  pieces.  His  Oriental  poetry  is  picturesque, 
but,  like  Mrs.  Rose  Mason's  gloves,  suggests 
the  Rue  dela  Paix, — or  at  least  Horace  Vernet 
and  Fromentin.  His  wit,  his  cleverness  of 
phrase,  his  keen  sense  of  the  comic,  and  his  life 
long  interest  in  the  stage  and  stage-folk,  might 
have  made  him,  one  would  think, an  unexcelled 
writer  of  comedies.  Yet  his  chief  ventures  in 
dramatic  composition  —  aside  from  some  early 
unpreserved  fragments — are  tragedies.  "Mer 
cedes,"  as  played  by  Julia  Arthur,  was  a  notable 
performance,  although  narrow  in  its  range  of 
dramatic  forces.  "Judith  of  Bethulia,"  a  dra 
matized  version  of  his  early  narrative  poem  "  Ju 
dith  andHolofernes,"  was  an  experiment  which 
brought  new  zest  into  his  closing  years.  The 
play  was  skillfully  put  together,  and  its  third  act 
was  powerful,  but  it  was  acted,  on  the  first  night 
at  least,  with  a  crude  commonness  that  failed 
alike  to  do  justice  to  Aldrich's  rich  lines  and  to 
compel  the  admiration  of  the  indifferent  play- 

[  '67] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

goer.  The  failure  of  the  play  was  a  pity,  yet  one 
may  question  whether  a  success  would  have 
made  any  difference  in  the  total  impression  left 
by  Aldrich  upon  his  generation. 

In  reviewing  his  latest  volumes  of  prose  for 
the  Atlantic,1  I  ventured  to  apply  to  Mr.  Al 
drich  a  sentence  from  his  own  charming  essay 
upon  Herrick:  "A  fine  thing  incomparably 
said  instantly  becomes  familiar,  and  has  hence 
forth  a  sort  of  dateless  excellence."  The  secret 
of  that  dateless  excellence  was  possessed  by  Al 
drich  himself.  To  judge  merely  by  their  mood, 
many  of  his  poems  might  have  been  written  in 
the  garden  of  Herrick's  Devon  parsonage,  or 
a  whole  century  later,  upon  the  sloping  lawn 
of  Horace  Walpole's  villa  of  Strawberry  Hill. 
Aldrich  would  have  been  a  delightful  compan 
ion  for  George  Selwyn  and  Harry  Montague, 
and  he  could  also  have  joyously  discussed  the 
art  of  polishing  verse  and  prose  with  Theophile 
Gautier  and  Prosper  Merimee.  His  spirit  es 
capes  the  rigid  limits  set  by  the  biographical 
dictionary.  In  his  choice  of  metrical  forms  and 
his  vocabulary  he  is  obviously  indebted  to  Ten 
nyson's  volume  of  1842,  yet  it  is  usually  im- 
1  In  November,  1903. 

[  ,68] 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 

possible  to  determine  by  internal  evidence  — 
as  one  often  can  in  Tennyson's  case  —  in  what 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  his  various 
poems  were  written.  The  general  trend  of  the 
philosophical,  religious,  or  political  speculation 
of  Aldrich's  day  is  not  discoverable  in  his  work. 
He  had  no  such  ethical  and  doctrinaire  preoc 
cupations  as  colored  the  verse  of  Whittier  and 
Arnold,  and  troubled,  though  it  sometimes 
strangely  exalted,  the  later  lyrics  of  Tennyson. 
Aldrich's  poetry,  like  that  of  Keats  and  Ros- 
setti,  is  free  from  the  alloy  of  essentially  un- 
poetical  elements;  it  bears  no  traces  of  Tendenz; 
its  excellence  is  dateless. 

In  this  tranquil  aloofness  from  the  passions 
and  convictions  of  the  hour,  and  in  the  beautiful 
perfection  of  its  workmanship,  lies  its  promise 
of  long  life.  There  will  always  be  some  readers 
who  are  no  more  likely  to  forget  Aldrich's 
poetry  than  Mozart's  music  or  the  crocus 
breaking  through  the  mould  in  March.  The 
very  lightest  of  his  pieces,  marked  "Fragile" 
as  they  are,  are  dear  to  the  spirit  of  beauty,  and 
will  possess  something  of  the  perpetually  re 
newed  immortality  of  the  cobwebs  sparkling 
on  the  lawn  and  the  fairy  frostwork  on  the  pane. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

And  yet,  if  one  were  to  choose  where  no  choice 
is  needful,  one  might  hazard  the  guess  that  the 
hearts  of  future  readers  are  more  likely,  as  the 
years  go  by,  to  be  turned  toward  the  few  poems 
in  which  Aldrich  has  deepened  the  wistful 
beauty  of  his  lines  by  thoughts  of  the  mysteries 
which  encompass  us.  Whether  he  pondered 
often  upon  such  themes  one  cannot  tell,  but  one 
likes  to  think  of  him,  at  the  last,  as  sustained 
by  the  noble  mood  in  which  he  composed  his 
final  sonnet:  — 

I  vex  me  not  with  brooding  on  the  years 

That  were  ere  I  drew  breath:  why  should  I  then 

Distrust  the  darkness  that  may  fall  again 

When  life  is  done  ?    Perchance  in  other  spheres  — 

Dead  planets  —  I  once  tasted  mortal  tears, 

And  walked  as  now  amid  a  throng  of  men, 

Pondering  things  that  lay  beyond  my  ken, 

Questioning  death,  and  solacing  my  fears. 

Ofttimes  indeed  strange  sense  have  I  of  this, 

Vague  memories  that  hold  me  with  a  spell, 

Touches  of  unseen  lips  upon  my  brow, 

Breathing  some  incommunicable  bliss ! 

In  years  foregone,  O  Soul,  was  all  not  well  ? 

Still  lovelier  life  awaits  thee.   Fear  not  thou  ! 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 


Whittier  for  To-day 

WHITTIER  was  born  in  1807,  the  year  of  By 
ron's  "  Hours  of  Idleness."  During  the  year 
following,  the  English  army  in  the  Peninsular 
War,  allied  with  the  forces  of  Spain  and  Portu 
gal,  made  what  the  poet  Wordsworth  felt  to 
be  a  shameful  treaty  with  the  French.  In  his 
pamphlet  against  this  Convention  of  Cintra, 
Wordsworth  justified,  with  passionate  elo 
quence,  the  right  of  noble-minded  men  to  as 
sert  themselves  in  times  of  moral  tumult  and 
confused  political  aims.  He  pictured  the  hu 
man  soul  "  breaking  down  limit,  and  losing  and 
forgetting  herself  in  the  sensation  and  image  of 
Country  and  the  human  race."  In  such  crises, 
he  declared,  the  emotions  transcend  the  imme 
diate  object  which  excites  them.  War,  terrible 
in  its  naked  cruelty,  yet  "attracting  the  more 
benign  by  the  accompaniment  of  some  shadow 
which  seems  to  sanctify  it ;  the  senseless  weav- 

[173  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

ing  and  interweaving  of  factions  —  vanishing 
and  reviving  and  piercing  each  other  like  the 
Northern  Lights;  public  commotions,  and 
those  in  the  breast  of  the  individual ;  .  .  .  these 
demonstrate  that  the  passions  of  men  (I  mean 
the  soul  of  sensibility  in  the  heart  of  man)  do 
immeasurably  transcend  their  objects.  The  true 
sorrow  of  humanity  consists  in  this :  not  that 
the  mind  of  man  fails,  but  that  the  course  and 
demands  of  action  and  of  life  so  rarely  corre 
spond  with  the  dignity  and  intensity  of  human 
desires." 

Clouded  as  these  words  are  with  excess  of 
feeling,  few  passages  could  suggest  more  vividly 
one  function  which  Whittier's  poetry  was  to 
fulfill.  Gifted  with  far  less  genius  than  either 
Wordsworth  or  Byron,  Whittier  nevertheless 
felt  "public  commotions"  as  profoundly  as 
did  either  of  the  English  poets.  He  guided  the 
passionate  feeling  of  his  faction  and  party  more 
definitely  than  they,  and  to  a  more  successful 
issue.  The  "demands  of  action"  matched  the 
intensity  of  his  desires.  Confronting  a  specific 
phase  of  the  old  question  of  human  liberty, — 
a  question  which  faces  every  poet  who  reflects 
upon  man  in  his  social  relations,  —  Whittier 

[  174] 


WHIJTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

grew  from  a  mere  facile  rhymester  into  a  master 
of  political  poetry.  During  the  thirty  years  that 
ended  with  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  no 
poetic  voice  in  America  was  so  potent  as  Whit- 
tier's  in  evoking  and  embodying  the  humani 
tarian  spirit. 

He  continued  to  compose  verse  for  nearly 
thirty  years  after  the  conflict  over  Slavery  had 
been  settled,  and  these  later  poems  contributed 
largely  to  his  popularity.  But  his  mind  was 
formed,  his  imagination  kindled,  and  his  hand 
perfected,  amid  the  fiery  pressure  of  events. 
He  voiced  not  only  those  voiceless  generations 
of  pioneers  from  which  he  sprang,  but  also  the 
dumb  passion  of  sympathy,  of  indignation,  of 
loyalty,  which  was  to  swing  vast  armies  of  com 
mon  men  into  march  and  battle.  It  was  a  curi 
ous  destiny  for  the  Quaker  lad.  Frail  of  body, 
timid,  poor,  untaught,  he  had  discovered  on 
reading  Burns  that  he,  too,  had  a  poet's  soul. 
He  learned  from  William  Lloyd  Garrison  the 
secret  of  losing  one's  life  and  saving  it,  so  that 
in  becoming  —  in  his  own  words  —  "a  man 
and  not  a  mere  verse-maker"  he  found  in  that 
surrender  to  the  claims  of  humanity  the  inspi 
ration  which  transformed  him  into  a  poet. 

[  175] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Will  our  people  continue  to  read  him  ?  At 
the  death  of  Tennyson,  which  fell  in  the  same 
yearasWhittier's  (1892),  a  decorous  little  com 
pany  gathered  in  an  American  college  town  to 
read  and  discuss  some  of  the  Laureate's  poetry. 
It  was  a  grave  and  wholly  edifying  occasion. 
One  of  the  company  was  a  lawyer,  then  far  ad 
vanced  in  age,  of  the  highest  professional  stand 
ing,  and  the  senior  warden  of  his  church.  When 
the  programme  was  completed  and  the  ice 
cream  was  imminent,  the  stately  old  lawyer  drew 
me  cautiously  behind  a  door. 

"Do  you  really  enjoy  Tennyson?"  he  de 
manded. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  in  some  surprise.  "Don't 
you  ? " 

"  No  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  It  has  too  many  in 
volutions  and  convolutions  for  me.  I  don't 
like  it.  Did  you  ever  read  Byron's  c  Marino 
Faliero'?" 

"  I  was  reading  it  only  yesterday,"  said  I. 

The  senior  warden's  eye  kindled  with  sud 
den  fire.  "Well,  that's  the  kind  of  poetry  / 
like  :  where  the  old  man  stands  up  and  gives  'em 
hell!"  And  with  a  friendly  wink  at  me  —  a 
reader  of  the  poet  of  his  boyhood  —  the  old 

[  176  ]  ' 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

gentleman  blandly  joined  one  of  the  groups  of 
ladies  who  were  still  talking  about 

"  laborious  Orient  ivory  ' J 

and 

••  the  mellow  ouzel  fluting  in  the  elm." 

No  coiner  of  literary  phrases  could  have  con 
veyed  so  effectively  the  nature  of  the  spell  once 
cast  over  readers  by  Byron's  passionate  decla 
mation.  The  harangues  of  Faliero  and  Man 
fred  and  Cain  are,  if  one  pleases,  rebel's  rhetoric 
rather  than  poetry,  speech  instead  of  song.  Yet 
they  moved  men  once  as  no  one  is  moved 
to-day  by  any  living  writer  of  verse.  Whittier 
shared  with  Byron  the  faculty  of  forging  at 
white  heat  such  stanzas  as  were  instantly  ac 
cepted  as  poetry.  A  later  age  is  inclined  to 
classify  them  as  pamphleteering  or  as  oratory. 
Lowell  writes  to  Whittier  to  "cry  aloud  and 
spare  not  against  the  accursed  Texas  plot,"  and 
Whittier  straightway  composes  his  "Texas  "  : 

Up  the  hillside,  down  the  glen, 
Rouse  the  sleeping  citizen  ; 
Summon  out  the  might  of  men! 

Aside  from  its  use  ofmetre  and  rhyme,  it  might 
be  one  of  Lowell's  own  anti-slavery  editorials. 

r  177] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Whittier's  stout-hearted  sea-captain,  who  de 
clares  :  — 

"  Pile  my  ship  with  bars  of  silver,  pack  with  coins  of  Spanish 

gold, 

From  keel-piece  up  to  deck-plank,  the  roomage  of  the  hold. 
By  the  living  God  who  made  me !  —  I  would  sooner  in  your 

bay 
Sink  ship  and  crew  and  cargo,  than  bear  this  child  away !  " 

is  scarcely  distinguishable  from  Garrison  as 
severating: — 

"  I  am  in  earnest — I  will  not  equivocate  —  I 
will  not  excuse —  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch 
—  and  I  will  be  beard"  Both  are  honest  men, 
aflame  with  righteous  indignation  ;  neither  is  a 
poet.  Just  as  Elliott's  "Corn  Law  Rhymes" 
are  often  but  a  metrical  version  of  the  speeches 
of  Cobden  and  Bright,  soWhittier's  anti-slavery 
verse  is  sometimes  but  a  rhythmical  rearrange 
ment  of  matter  that  would  have  served  equally 
well  for  a  peroration  by  Wendell  Phillips  or  a 
leader  by  Horace  Greeley.  The  aim  of  them 
all  was  to  inform,  to  explain,  to  call  to  action  ; 
and  a  half-century  after  the  action  is  over, 
the  rhymes,  like  the  speech  and  the  article,  are 
likely  to  share  the  pamphlet's  fate.  All  have 
served  their  hour. 

[  178] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

Many  of  Whittier's  political  poems,  however, 
refuse  to  be  disposed  of  thus  easily.  Their  ma 
terial  still  seems  to  be  the  stuff  from  which  en 
during  poetry  is  wrought.  Defects  ofworkman- 
ship  may  mar  their  surface,  but  the  imaginative 
fabric  is  essentially  unimpaired.  The  force  of 
his  ideas  and  sentiments  far  outweighs  the  de 
ficiencies  in  technical  craftsmanship.  His  anti- 
slavery  poetry  is  based  upon  certain  convictions, 
familiar  enough  to  all  who  know  the  facts  of 
Whittier's  life.  He  inherited  a  love  of  freedom 
as  an  abstract  notion  —  "the  faith  in  which  my 
father  stood" — and  a  corresponding  hatred 
of  kingcraft  and  priestcraft.  The  movement  for 
abolition  in  England  and  America  seemed  to 
him,  as  to  his  father,  a  legitimate  consequence 
of  the  principles  which  had  triumphed  in  the 
French  Revolution.  He  was  endowed  with 
warm  human  feeling.  His  loyalty  to  the  bonds 
of  family ,  neighborhood,  and  state  was  absolute, 
and  he  merged  this  loyalty,  without  impairing 
it,  into  what  Wordsworth  called  "the  sensation 
and  image  of  Country  and  the  human  race." 

Add  to  this  poetic  capital  an  intimate  know 
ledge  of  the  men  of  his  section,  a  shrewd  politi 
cal  eye  for  the  currents  of  public  opinion,  a  com- 

[  179  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

mand  of  simple,  racy,  fervent  speech,  the  self- 
possession  of  a  Quaker  and"  come-outer,"  and 
a  high  courageous  heart,  —  and  you  have  an 
almost  ideal  image  of  a  poet  armed  and  ready 
in  a  noble  cause. 

To  appreciate  Whittier's  moral  courage  is 
difficult  without  a  precise  knowledge  ofthe  sort 
of  ostracism  which  he  faced.  A  physician  in 
Washington,  Dr.  Crandall,  languished  in  prison 
until  he  contracted  a  fatal  illness,  under  sen 
tence  for  the  misdemeanor  of  reading  a  bor 
rowed  copy  of  Whittier's  pamphlet  "  Justice 
and  Expediency."  No  anarchist  to-day  is  a 
more  "  unsafe  "  person  in  the  eyes  of  respect 
able  society  than  were  the  Abolitionists.  Your 

Solid  man  of  Boston; 
A  comfortable  man,  with  dividends, 
And  the  first  salmon,  and  the  first  green  peas, 

was  irritated  by  Whittier  then  as  he  is  irritated 
by  Gorky  to-day. 

In  the  eyes  ofthe  typical  commercial  circles 
of  Massachusetts,  Whittier  was  for  twenty  years 
an  agitator  and  therefore  an  outcast.  The  idol 
of  that  society  was  Daniel  Webster;  and  Whit 
tier,  with  a  scorn  and  sorrow  all  the  more  ter- 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

rible  for  its  recognition  of  Webster's  high  pow 
ers,  described  him  in  1850  as  an  Ichabod:— 

from  those  great  eyes 
The  soul  has  fled: 

When  faith  is  lost,  when  honor  dies, 
The  man  is  dead! 

A  year  later,  in  the  poem  to  Kossuth,  Web 
ster's  glorious  voice — 

designed 
The  bugle-march  of  Liberty  to  wind  — 

becomes  merely 

the  hoarse  note  of  the  bloodhound's  baying, 
The  wolPs  long  howl  behind  the  bondman's  flight. 

Years  afterward,  it  is  true,  in  one  of  the  most 
touching  of  his  poems,  Whittier  mourns  that 
Webster's  august  head  was  laid  wearily  down,  — 

Too  soon  for  us,  too  soon  for  thee, 
Beside  thy  lonely  Northern  sea. 

But  in  the  Titan's  lifetime  Whittier's  words 
were  those  of  stern  and  sorrowful  rebuke. 

Nor  did  the  social  forces  which  supported 
Webster  fare  better  in  Whittier's  day  of  wrath. 
In  his  "Stanzas  for  the  Times"  (1835)  and 
"  Moloch  in  State  Street,"  the 

[  181  ] 


PARK-STREET   PAPERS 

ancient  sacrifice 
Of  Man  to  Gain 

is  denounced  with  prophetic  sternness.  In  "The 
Pine  Tree"  the  conventional  arguments  of  the 
solid  citizens  of  Boston  are  tossed  aside  as  if 
the  old,  reckless  "  fa  ira"  wind  were  blowing. 
The  tune  is, — 

Perish  banks  and  perish  traffic,  spin  your  cotton's  latest 
pound. 

It  is, — 

Tell  us  not  of  banks  and  tariffs,  cease  your  paltry  pedler 

cries; 
Shall  the  good  State  sink  her  honor  that  your  gambling 

stocks  may  rise? 

A  Trust  Company  in  Greater  Boston  chose 
for  its  advertising  motto,  not  long  ago,  the 
phrase :  "  Banking,  the  Foundation  of  Govern 
ment."  Whittier  would  have  smiled  at  that 
placard  with  grim  Jacobinical  disdain. 

Equally  revolutionary  was  his  attack  upon 
the  clergy.  Crosier  and  crown,  to  him,  were 
"twin-born  vampires."  Chief-priests  and  rulers 
were  conniving  with  each  other,  as  of  old.  In 
"Clerical  Oppressors"  Whittier  cried, — 

Woe  to  the  priesthood!  woe 
To  those  whose  hire  is  with  the  price  of  blood; 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

Perverting,  darkening,  changing,  as  they  go, 
The  searching  truths  of  God ! 

With  bitter  sarcasm  in  "  The  Pastoral  Let 
ter/1  with  stinging  invective  in  "The  Christian 
Slave"  and  "  The  Sentence  of  John  L.  Brown," 
Whittier  scourged  the  clerical  upholders  of  the 
"divine  institution."  Finally,  in  "A  Sabbath 
Scene,"  when  the  parson  returns  thanks  to  God 
for  the  capture  of  the  fugitive  slave  girl,  the 
poet  can  endure  no  more:  — 

My  brain  took  fire:  "Is  this,"  I  cried, 
"The  end  of  prayer  and  preaching? 
Then  down  with  pulpit,  down  with  priest, 
And  give  us  Nature's  teaching!  " 

This  is  the  unadulterated  doctrine  of  1789. 
Pennsylvania  Hall,  the  ill-starred  Abolitionist 
headquarters  in  Philadelphia,  is  transformed  in 
Whittier's  imagination  into  the  one 

Temple  sacred  to  the  Rights  of  Man. 

One  is  curious  to  know  how  many  of  the  suc 
cessors  of  the  clergymen  whom  Whittier  held 
up  to  obloquy  read  out  his  hymns  to-day  with 
any  suspicion  of  the  agony  of  soul,  the  despair 
for  the  priesthood  and  the  church,  in  which 
many  of  those  hymns  were  written. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  illustrations  of 
Whittier's  attitude  toward  the  specific  issue  of 
American  slavery.  To  his  mind  this  particular 
battle  was  but  one  phase  of  the  long  humani 
tarian  campaign  against  world-wide  injustice. 
Through  the  electric  currents  of  his  verse  the 
better  aspirations  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
even  the  phrases  and  the  passions  of  European 
Revolution  were  brought  into  contact  with  the 
American  conscience.  But  he  was  far  more  than 
what  he  modestly  described  himself  as  being,  a 
mere 

Weapon  in  the  war  with  wrong. 

History  and  legend  of  Indian  and  colonist, 
songs  of  homely  labor,  pictures  of  the  Merri- 
mac  country-side,  bits  of  foreign  lore  and  fancy, 
— all  these  alternate  in  Whittier's  verse  with 
elegies  over  dead  Abolitionists  and  stern  sum 
monses  to  action.  He  read  a  great  variety  of 
books  and  kept  in  close  touch  with  the  move 
ments  of  European  politics.  Although  he  never 
went  abroad,  the  names  of  Garibaldi,  Thiers, 
or  Pius  IX  suggested  to  him  themes  for  poems 
as  readily  as  did  the  personality  of  his  friends 
Fields  and  Sumner.  He  could  turn  out  a  Brown- 
ingesque  piece  like  "From  Perugia,"  without 

[  184] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

betraying  the  fact  that  he  had  never  set  foot 
in  Italy.  His  was  not  merely  a  home-keeping 
mind  or  heart.  Garrison's  motto  for  the  "  Liber 
ator":  "Our  country  is  the  world  —  our  coun 
trymen  are  mankind,"  spoke  a  sentiment  which 
permeates  all  of  Whittier's  verse  like  light.  It 
sustained  him  when  the  American  outlook  grew 
dark;  it  sweetened  and  broadened  his  spirit. 
From  the  later  forties  to  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War,  it  is  instructive  as  well  as  pleasant  to  ob 
serve  how  many  of  his  poetic  themes  are  de 
tached  from  the  immediate  emotions  of  the 
hour.  More  and  more  he  emerged  from  the  at 
mosphere  of  faction  and  section.  Even  his  poems 
prompted  by  the  war  itself,  like  "  Barbara  Friet- 
chie"  and  "Laus  Deo,"  breathe  a  spirit  of  nation 
ality  and  not  of  partisanship.  The  struggle  had 
scarcely  ceased  when  he  wrote  "Snow-Bound," 
an  idyllic  composition  which  was  instantly  and 
truly  interpreted  as  an  intimate  revelation  of 
Whittier's  real  nature.  He  was  almost  sixty 
when  it  appeared,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  long  life 
he  was  known  to  his  countrymen  as  the  author 
of  "Snow-Bound."  The  old  homestead  at  East 
Haverhill  is  now  visited  by  thousands  of  pil 
grims  who  are  more  anxious  to  see  "  the  clean- 

[  185] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

winged  hearth"  and  the  stepping-stones  by  the 
brook  than  they  are  to  rake  the  ashes  from  the 
old  fires  of  the  Abolition  controversy. 

So  he  grew  old,  a  plain  figure  of  a  man,  shrewd, 
gentle,  loving  the  talk  of  gracious  women,  lov 
ing  his  summer  glimpses  of  mountain  and  shore, 
and  yet  essentially  lonely.  He  used  to  sit  in  the 
little  back  room  of  the  Amesbury  House,  over 
a  sheet-iron  stove,  and  glance  now  at  a  photo 
graph  of  the  bust  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and  now  at 
the  florid  face  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,on  the 
opposite  wall,  —  saying  playfully  that  he  was  a 
sort  of  compromise  between  the  two.  The  stoic 
was  in  his  blood,  certainly,  and  there  was  some 
thing,  too,  of  the  sentimentalist  and  the  agita 
tor.  New  Englanders,  and  especially  the  trans 
planted  New  Englanders  of  the  West,  loved 
him  to  the  last,  knowing  him  as  only  kinsmen 
can  know  one  another.  The  rest  of  the  country 
respected  him  for  the  uprightness  of  his  long 
career,  for  his  courage  in  the  dark  days,  and  for 
the  fame  which  his  verse  had  won.  He  died,  at 
the  great  age  of  eighty-five,only  fifteen  years  ago. 

Only  fifteen  years,  yet  in  the  flux  and  change 
of  our  national  life  during  that  interval,  Whittier 
[  186] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

seems  already  as  far  away  as  Longfellow,  who 
died  ten  years  earlier.  Even  Hawthorne,  who 
died  in  1864,  is  scarcely,  as  a  personal  figure, 
more  remote.  It  was  as  a  neighborhood  poet  that 
Whittier  began  his  career,  —  a  rural  prodigy 
who  without  schooling  could  make  such  rhymes 
as  pleased  the  ear  of  Newburyport  and  Haver- 
hill.  He  continued  throughout  his  life  to  pro 
duce  the  sort  of  verse  which  appealed,  first  of 
all,  to  his  neighbors.  But  even  the  most  casual 
visitor  to  Whittier- Land  to-day  is  struck  by  the 
change  in  the  poet's  audience.  Here  and  there, 
and  notably  between  the  Whittier  homestead 
and  Amesbury,the  ancient  farms  remain  intact. 
Some  of  them  are  owned,  as  in  Whittier's  youth, 
by  Quakers.  As  one  drives  along  the  elm-shaded 
roads,  there  may  still  be  seen  in  a  fewdooryards 
the  little  weather-stained  shops  for  home  shoe- 
making,  with  flower-gardens  around  them,  and 
perhaps,  at  the  window,  a  gray  head  bent  over 
the  bench,  finishing  some  fine  hand-work  that 
will  be  taken  to  Haverhill  to-morrow.  But  these 
old  men — the  men  for  whom  Whittier  wrote — 
are  dying.  Machine-work  and  foreign  "help" 
— as  they  still  say  in  Essex  County — are  mak 
ing  the  old  native  industries  superfluous.  Along 

[  187] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

the  lines  of  the  electric  cars  are  new  dwellings, 
ugly  to  the  eye,  and  rented  by  French  Canadians, 
Poles,  Italians,  Greeks.  What  should  these  im 
migrants  know  or  care  for  the  "pines  on  Ra- 
moth  Hill,"  though  Ramoth  Hill,  under  an 
other  name,  be  only  over  their  shoulder?  Their 
children  will  read  "Maud  Muller"  and  "Bar 
bara  Frietchie"  in  school,  but  even  they  will 
need  an  annotated  edition  of  "Snow-Bound" 
to  tell  them  why  a  hearth  should  be  "winged" 
and  what "  pendent  trammels  "  are,  and  "Turk's 
head"  andirons. 

Read  the  editorials  which  Whittier  was  writ 
ing  in  1844  for  the  mill-folk  of  Lowell,  —  an 
educated,  thrifty,  ambitious  class,  —  and  then 
walk  along  the  streets  of  Lowell  and  Lawrence 
to-day,  in  the  endeavor  to  find  a  native  New 
England  face.  They  have  almost  disappeared. 
Massachusetts,  which  reckoned  about  one-fifth 
of  her  population  as  foreign-born  or  children  of 
foreign-born  in  1857, — when  Whittier  began 
to  write  for  the  Atlantic, — now  finds  this  class 
of  her  citizens  in  the  majority.  To  the  men  and 
women  for  whom  Whittier  wrote,  the  Boston  of 
to-day  would  be  a  city  of  aliens.  Only  thirty-two 
percent  of  its  population  is  Protestant.  No  im- 
[  188  ] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

agination  can  picture  the  laboring  men  of  New 
England  sitting  down  to  read  Whittier's  "  Songs 
of  Labor."  The  very  tools  have  changed,  and 
the  spirit  of  Whittier'sDrovers  and  Shoemakers 
and  Lumbermen  is  incomprehensible  to  their 
successors.  It  is  too  late — and  too  foolish — to 
raise  any  Know-Nothing  alarm.  Far  better  these 
immigrants,  as  raw  material  for  Democracy's 
wholesome  task,  than  that  exhausted  strain  of 
Puritan  stock  which  lives  querulously  in  the 
cities  or  grows  vile  in  the  hill-towns.  It  is  no 
worse  for  Boston  to  be  misgoverned  by  a  clever 
Irishman  than  by  some  inefficient  Brahmin  of 
the  Back  Bay.  But  whether  these  changes  in  the 
population  are  welcomed  or  deplored,  the  fact 
is  obvious  that  the  local  public  upon  which 
Whittier's  poetry  depended  for  its  immediate 
audience  has  altered  beyond  recognition. 

What  is  true  of  New  England  is  true  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree  of  the  whole  country.  New 
men,  new  habits,  new  political  notions,  are  in  the 
saddle.  That  New  England  should  have  lost 
whatever  ascendency  she  once  possessed  is  not 
a  matter  of  prime  importance.  That  the  country 
no  longer  looks  to  her  for  political  or  literary 
leadership  is  due  to  many  causes  which  have  no- 

C  189  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

thing  to  do  with  Whittier.  And  nevertheless, 
his  life  and  his  poetry  were  so  intimately  identi 
fied  with  his  section,  that  its  loss  of  prestige  in 
the  nation  affects  the  present  assessment  of 
Whittier's  significance. 

One  must  admit  that  from  some  points  of 
view  he  remains,  what  he  was  at  the  beginning, 
— a  "  local "  poet.  In  spite  of  the  clear  resonance 
with  which  he  now  and  again  struck  the  note  of 
nationality,andin  spite  of  his  cosmopolitan  curi 
osity  about  the  world  at  large, — a  curiosity  felt, 
for  that  matter,  by  many  an  Essex  County  sea 
faring  man  of  the  vanished  type,  —  Whittier 
never  lost  a  sort  of  rusticity.  One  may  like  him 
all  the  better  for  it.  Itgoes  with  his  role,  like  the 
rusticity  of  Burns.  Yet  it  seems  now,  as  Burns's 
provincialism  does  not,  to  narrow  the  range  of 
his  influence  as  a  poet. 

Whittier  was  limited,  too,  in  his  physical  ca 
pacity  to  perceive  beauty  and  in  his  artistic  power 
to  interpret  it.  Color-blind  and  tune-deaf  as  he 
was,  knowing  no  full  and  rich  life  of  the  body, 
his  poetry  is  deficient  in  sensuous  charm.  Its 
passion  is  a  moral  passion  only.  With  a  natural 
facility  in  metre  and  rhyme,  his  workmanship 
betrayed  throughout  his  career  a  carelessness  for 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

literature  as  an  art.  His  rhymes  were  often  mere 
improvised  approximations.  In  one  poem  alone 
he  rhymes  "  God  "  with  "  abode,"  "  word  "  and 
"record."  From  the  hundreds  of  still  uncollected 
poems  which  he  scrawled  in  youth,  down  to  the 
jocose  doggerel  —  never  intended  for  publica 
tion — with  which  his  old  age  sometimes  relaxed 
itself,  Whittier  exhibited  little  delicacy  of  ear, 
little  reverence  for  that  instrument  of  verse  on 
which  he  had  learned  to  play  without  a  teacher. 
He  cared  intensely  for  the  feelings  communi 
cated  by  the  art  of  poetry,  but  he  expressed  more 
than  once  in  his  letters  a  kind  of  contempt  for 
craftsmanship,  for  "literary  reputation." 

Even  in  that  field  of  moral  ideas  where  his 
strength  lay,  his  path  was  likewise  narrow.  Stern 
ly,  and  as  it  proved  victoriously,  he  brought  the 
teachings  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  as 
freely  interpreted  by  his  own  Quaker  sect,  to 
bear  upon  the  problems  of  the  hour.  His  power 
as  a  moral  teacher  was  in  the  veracity  and  bold 
ness  with  which  he  could  utter  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord."  He  had  no  new  message  of  his  own.  He 
did  not  even  restate  the  enduring  verities  in  dif 
ferent  terms.  He  never  attempted,  like  Words 
worth,  a  fresh  philosophical  grasp  upon  the 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

frame  of  things.  Like  most  of  the  prophets  and 
saints,  he  took  the  accepted  moralities,  the  fa 
miliar  religious  formulas  of  his  day,  and  through 
his  own  fervor  breathed  into  them  life  and  pas 
sion.  But  he  creates  no  novel  world  for  the  spirit 
of  man;  he  opens  no  undreamed  horizons  to  the 
imagination. 

We  must  fall  back  upon  Whittier's  gift  of 
fiery  and  tender  speech.  It  is  the  case,  after 
all,  of  a  Marino  Faliero,  of  an  old  man  elo 
quent.  And  this  is  precisely  what  one  would 
like  to  know  :  does  Whittier  to-day,  fifty  years 
after  the  full  maturing  of  his  powers,  and  fifteen 
years  after  his  death,  either  compel  or  persuade 
his  countrymen  to  listen  to  him? 

It  is  easier  to  ask  this  question  than  to  an 
swer  it.  Our  people  as  a  whole  respond  quickly 
to  personal  leadership.  They  have  an  immense 
latent  capacity  for  moral  and  political  enthu 
siasm.  But  there  is  no  master  voice  in  the 
world  of  letters  to  which  the  American  people 
are  now  listening.  In  Whittier's  early  man 
hood  he  set  himself  deliberately  to  learn  the 
principles  of  true  liberty  from  the  prose  of 
Milton  and  of  Burke.  There  are  few  greater 

[  19*  ] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

names  in  our  literature  than  these.  But  aside 
from  the  perfunctory  reading  of  extracts  for 
school  and  college  examinations,  who  is  read 
ing  Milton  and  Burke  to-day?  Who  is  reading 
Byron  and  Shelley,  poets  of  emancipation,  kin 
to  Whittier  by  many  bonds  of  sympathy,  and 
far  transcending  him  in  poetic  variety,  power, 
and  beauty?  The  mind  of  the  American  peo 
ple  is  occupied  with  other  concerns.  For  that 
matter,  there  is  not  a  single  living  poet,  in  any 
country  of  the  globe,  who  is  generally  recog 
nized  as  a  commanding  voice.  Tennyson  was 
the  last.  That  others  will  arise  in  due  time  no 
one  who  knows  the  history  of  humanity  can 
doubt.  But  they  have  not  yet  come. 

Meantime  our  own  people,  at  least,  no 
longer  look  to  the  poets — as  they  certainly  did 
in  other  days  —  for  inspiration  and  guidance 
in  the  performance  of  public  duty.  Whittier's 
"  Massachusetts  to  Virginia,"  Lowell's  u  The 
Present  Crisis,"  Mrs.  Howe's  "Battle  Hymn 
of  the  Republic,"  unquestionably  did  influence 
the  emotions  and  the  will  of  millions  of  Amer 
icans.  That  any  political  verse  would  to-day 
affect  our  public  policy  is  very  doubtful.  A 
single  illustration  may  serve.  In  1900,  when 

C   '93   1 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

the  question  of  forcible  retention  of  the  Phil 
ippines  was  still  a  debated  one,  and  consider 
ations  of  national  duty,  self-interest,  and  pride 
were  struggling  together  in  the  public  mind, 
Mr.  William  Vaughn  Moody  published  his 
"Ode  in  Time  of  Hesitation."  Many  critics 
of  poetry  hailed  it  as  the  finest  political  poem 
produced  in  this  country  since  Lowell's  "  Com 
memoration  Ode."  Yet  noble  in  thought  and 
masterly  in  execution  though  it  was,  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  Mr.  Moody's  poem  affected 
the  mind  of  the  nation  in  the  slightest  degree  ; 
and  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether 
one  spectator  in  a  thousand  of  Mr.  Moody's 
play, "  The  Great  Divide,"  has  ever  even  heard 
of  the  "Ode  in  Time  of  Hesitation." 

But  the  mere  fact  that  political  poets  are 
quoted  below  par  to-day — if  they  may  fairly 
be  said  to  be  quoted  at  all  —  does  not  prove 
that  the  public  is  justified  in  its  indifference, 
or  that  the  poets  are  in  the  wrong.  On  the 
contrary,  it  happens  that  upon  at  least  two 
of  the  issues  immediately  before  the  American 
people  Whittier's  verse  takes  radical  and  un 
compromising  ground,  and  that  upon  both  of 
these  issues  one  may  safely  venture  the  asser- 

[  T94  ] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

tion  that  Whittier  is  absolutely  and  everlast 
ingly  right. 

The  race-question  is  the  first.  Not,  of  course, 
the  old  issue  of  Slavery.  Not  the  wisdom  or 
unwisdom  of  that  hasty  Reconstruction  legis 
lation,  in  which  partisan  advantage  was  inex 
tricably  confused  with  the  ideal  interest  of 
former  slaves.  The  race-question  transcends 
any  academic  inquiry  as  to  what  ought  to  have 
been  done  in  1 866.  It  affects  the  North  as  well 
as  the  South,  it  touches  the  daily  life  of  all  of 
our  citizens,  individually,  politically,  humanly. 
It  moulds  the  child's  conception  of  democracy. 
It  tests  the  faith  of  the  adult.  It  is  by  no  means 
an  American  problem  only.  The  relation  of 
the  white  with  the  yellow  and  black  races  is  an 
urgent  question  all  around  the  globe.  The  pre 
sent  unrest  in  India,  the  wars  in  Africa,  the 
struggle  between  Japan  and  Russia,  the  national 
reconstruction  of  China,  the  sensitiveness  of 
both  Canadian  and  Californian  to  Oriental  im 
migration,  are  impressive  signs  that  the  adjust 
ment  of  race-differences  is  the  greatest  humani 
tarian  task  now  confronting  the  world.  What 
is  going  on  in  our  States,  North  and  South,  is 
only  a  local  phase  of  a  world  problem. 

[  195  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Now,  Whittier's  opinions  upon  that  world- 
problem  are  unmistakable.  He  believed,  quite 
literally,  that  all  men  are  brothers  ;  that  op 
pression  of  one  man  or  one  race  degrades  the 
whole  human  family  ;  and  that  there  should  be 
the  fullest  equality  of  opportunity.  That  a 
mere  difference  in  color  should  close  the  door 
of  civil,  industrial,  and  political  hope  upon  any 
individual  was  a  hateful  thing  to  the  Quaker 
poet.  The  whole  body  of  his  verse  is  a  pro 
test  against  the  assertion  of  race  pride,  against 
the  emphasis  upon  racial  differences.  To 
Whittier  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  "white 
man's  civilization."  The  only  distinction  was 
between  civilization  and  barbarism.  He  had 
faith  in  education,  in  equality  before  the  law, 
in  freedom  of  opportunity,  and  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  brotherhood. 

They  are  rising, — 

All  are  rising, 

The  black  and  white  together  ! 

This  faith  is  at  once  too  sentimental  and  too 
dogmatic  to  suit  those  persons  who  have  exalted 
economic  efficiency  into  a  fetish  and  who  have 
talked  loudly  at  times  —  though  rather  less 
loudly  since  the  Russo-Japanese  war  —  about 

[  196] 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

the  white  man's  task  of  governing  the  back 
ward  races.  But  whatever  progress  has  been 
made  by  the  American  negro,  since  the  Civil 
War,  in  self-respect,  in  moral  and  intellectual 
development,  and  — for  that  matter —  in  eco 
nomic  efficiency,  has  been  due  to  fidelity  to 
those  principles  which  Whittier  and  other  like- 
minded  men  and  women  long  ago  enunciated. 
The  immense  tasks  which  still  remain,  alike  for 
"  higher  "and  for  "lower"  races,  can  be  worked 
out  by  following  Whittier's  programme,  if  they 
can  be  worked  out  at  all. 

The  second  of  the  immediate  issues  upon 
which  Whittier's  voice  is  clear  is  that  of  inter 
national  peace.  Though  the  burdens  of  mili 
tarism  were  far  less  apparent  in  the  middle  of 
the  last  century  than  they  are  to-day,  and  the 
necessity  of  allaying  race-conflicts  by  peaceful 
means  was  less  instant  than  now,  Whittier  be 
longed  to  the  little  band  of  agitators  for  peace. 
He  did  not  make  war  against  war  so  vocifer 
ously  and  tactlessly  as  some  of  his  later  breth 
ren  in  the  same  cause.  But  he  faced  the 
question  with  perfect  clearness  of  conviction. 
The  good  people  who  were  dissatisfied  with 
the  meagre  results  of  the  Hague  Conference 

[  197] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

of  1907  had  better  read  Whittier's  lines   on 
"  The  Peace  Convention  at  Brussels  "  (1848). 
Then,  as  now,  there  were  faithless  critics  — 
With  sneering  lip,  and  wise  world-knowing  eyes — 

to  point  out  the  folly  of  this  dream  of  dis 
armament  ;  the  impossibility  of  persuading  the 
nations  to  leave  the  bloody 

Sport  of  Presidents  and  Kings 

in  order 

To  meet  alternate  on  the  Seine  and  Thames 
For  tea  and  gossip,  like  old  country  dames. 

According  to  these  critics,  as  Whittier  repre 
sents  them,  the  delegates  to  the  Convention  of 
1848,  such  as  Cobden  and  Sturge  and  Elihu 
Burritt,  are  merely  "  cravens  "  who  "  plead 
the  weakling's  cant."  But  Kaisers  cannot  be 
checked  by  resolutions;  guns  cannot  be  spiked 
with  texts  of  Scripture ;  "  Might  alone  is 
Right." 

So,  at  least,  assert  the  skeptics,  whose  case 
is  put  by  Whittier,  much  as  Lincoln  used  to 
put  the  case  for  his  opponents  at  the  bar,  much 
more  skillfully  than  they  could  do  it  for  them 
selves.  And  thereupon,  taking  refuge  in  that 
hinterland  of  religious  mysticism  whither  his 


WHITTIER  FOR  TO-DAY 

spirit  was  wont  to  escape  when  hard  pressed, 
Whittier  foretells,  in  assured  vision,  the  day 
when  there  shall  yet  be  peace  on  earth.  Ulti 
mate  international  good-will  is  to  him 

The  great  hope  resting  on  the  truth  of  God. 

But  it  rests,  and  does  not  waver. 

Time  has  already  done  much  to  justify  his 
faith.  To  compare  the  conditions  under  which 
the  Convention  of  Brussels  met  in  1848  with 
the  widely  organized  efforts,  and  the  very  tan 
gible  progress,  which  the  workers  for  interna 
tional  peace  have  made  since  1 899,  is  to  become 
aware  how  much  the  sentiment  of  the  civil 
ized  world  has  changed  upon  this  subject.  The 
"faithful  few"  who  journeyed  to  Brussels  at 
their  own  charges  and  upon  their  own  initia 
tive  have  become  the  duly  accredited  repre 
sentatives  of  forty-four  powers,  covering  the 
territory  of  the  globe.  The  Hague  Conference 
was  the  first  real  world-assembly,  and  its  work 
was  necessarily  confused  and  hampered.  But 
these  professional  diplomatists,  warriors,  and 
lawyers  who  met  at  The  Hague  are  not  in  ad 
vance  of,  and  many  of  them  are  far  behind,  the 
sentiment  of  the  common  people  of  their  re- 

[  199  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

spective  countries.  The  popular  dissatisfaction 
with  the  concrete  results  of  the  Conference  is 
the  best  proof  of  the  progress  of  the  cause  with 
which  Whittier  was  identified. 

After  all,  then,  and  in  spite  of  every  limita 
tion,  Whittier's  verse  does  penetrate  to  the  es 
sential  concerns  of  humanity.  If  Goethe's  fa 
mous  lines  are  true,  and  only  those  who  have 
eaten  their  bread  in  tears  have  learned  to  know 
the  heavenly  powers,  then  Whittier  was  an  in 
itiate.  He  knew  what  it  meant  to  toil,  to  re 
nounce,  to  cherish  unfulfilled  but  indefeasible 
dreams.  That  note  of  tenderness  which  Long 
fellow  found  and  loved  in  mediaeval  literature 
was  native  to  the  author  of  "The  Pennsylva 
nia  Pilgrim."  Save  for  their  lack  of  creed  and 
formula,  Whittier's  hymns  might  have  been 
composed  in  the  thirteenth  century,  so  utterly 
simple  is  their  faith.  He  believed  that  "altar, 
church,  priest  and  ritual  will  pass  away";  yet 
his  hymns,  like  those  of  many  another  former 
heretic  and  iconoclast,  are  sung  to-day  in  all 
the  churches.  Mr.  Pickard  notes  that  in  a  col 
lection  of  sixty-six  hymns  made  for  the  use  of 
the  World's  Parliament  of  Religions  in  1893, 
nine  were  from  Whittier,  a  larger  number  than 
[  200  ] 


WHITTIER   FOR  TO-DAY 

from  any  other  poet.  In  his  early  editorials  he 
made  effective  use  of  the  current  conventional 
religious  vocabulary,  but  for  his  hymns  he  chose 
the  simple  language  of  the  followers  of  the  In 
ner  Light,  unfreighted  with  the  old  burdens  of 
dogmatism.  Here  again  Time  has  been  on  the 
poet's  side,  and  Whittier's  verse  has  cooperated 
with  the  very  general  tendency  to  cast  off  dog 
matic  trammels  and  the  worn  conventionalities 
of  religious  expression.  It  would  not  be  strange 
if  his  ultimate  influence  were  to  be  that  of  a 
mystic.  Controversy  made  him  a  poet,  and  his 
pictures  of  hearth  and  home  and  country-side 
confirmed  his  fame;  his  human  sympathy  still 
brings  his  verse  into  touch  with  vital  political 
and  social  issues;  but  his  abiding  claim  upon 
the  remembrance  of  his  countrymen  may  yet 
be  found  to  lie  in  the  wistful  tenderness,  the 
childlike  simplicity,  with  which  he  turned  to 
the  other  world. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS 
NEVER  THE  EDITOR 


The  Editor  who  was  never 
the  Editor 

UPON  the  wall  of  the  Atlantic  office,  among 
the  portraits  of  former  editors,  there  may  be  seen 
a  fine  open  face,  with  striking  eyes  and  a  beard 
worn  longer  than  is  now  the  fashion.  It  is  a  fair 
likeness  of  Francis  H.  Underwood,  the  pro 
jector  of  the  magazine.  At  least  four  years  be 
fore  the  Atlantic  came  into  being,  he  originated 
the  plan,  engaged  the  contributors,  and  but  for 
the  failure  ofa  publisher  would  have  enjoyed  the 
full  credit  of  the  enterprise.  When  the  magazine 
was  finally  launched,  in  1857,  Underwood  was 
still  the  initiating  spirit.  It  was  he  who  pleaded 
with  the  reluctant  head  of  the  firm  of  Phillips, 
Sampson  &  Co.  As  "our  literary  man,"  in  Mr. 
Phillips's  comfortable  proprietary  phrase,  he 
sat  at  the  foot  of  the  table  among  the  guests  at 
that  well-known  dinner  where  the  project  of  the 

[  205  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

magazine  was  first  made  public.  He  visited 
England  to  secure  the  services  of  the  first  Brit 
ish  contributors.  Recognizing  that  Lowell's 
name  was  of  the  highest  importance  to  the  suc 
cess  of  the  new  venture,  Underwood  loyally 
accepted  the  position  of  "office  editor,"  as  as 
sistant  to  his  more  gifted  friend.  When  the 
breaking  up  of  the  firm  of  Phillips,  Sampson 
&  Co.,  in  1859,  threw  the  ownership  of  the 
magazine  into  the  hands  of  Ticknorand  Fields, 
Underwood  went  out  of  office,  as  did  Lowell  in 
due  time.  He  had  thereafter  a  varied  and  honor 
able,  although  a  somewhat  disappointed  career, 
which  has  already  been  sketched  in  the  Atlan 
tic  '  by  the  sympathetic  pen  of  J.  T.  Trow- 
bridge. 

A  graceful  writer,  and  a  warm-hearted,  en 
thusiastic  associate  of  men  more  brilliant  than 
himself,Underwood's  nameis  already  shadowed 
by  that  forgetfulness  which  awaits  the  second- 
rate  men  of  a  generation  rich  in  creative  energy. 
For  it  must  be  admitted  that  his  ability  was  not 
of  the  first  order ;  as  the  slang  of  the  athlete  has 
it,  he  never  quite  "  made  the  team."  But  he 
played  the  literary  game  devotedly,  honestly, 
1  "The  Author  of  Quabbin"  January,  1895. 
[  206  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

and  always  against  better  men ;  he  became,  in 
short,  a  model  of  the  "scrub"  player.  The 
scrubs,  as  every  one  knows,  get  a  good  dinner 
at  the  end  of  the  season,  listen  to  the  thanks 
of  the  coaches,  and  then  are  straightway  for 
gotten. 

Underwood,  however,  gave  alms  to  oblivion 
by  several  useful  volumes,  and  by  keeping  an 
extraordinary  scrap-book. '  I  n  two  huge  leather- 
backed  volumes  are  pasted  hundreds  upon  hun 
dreds  of  letters  received  during  his  forty  years 
of  correspondence  with  many  of  the  foremost 
American  and  English  writing  men.  There  are 
a  dozen  or  more  from  Lowell,  many  from 
Emerson,  nearly  forty  from  Holmes,  and  about 
fifty  from  Whittier.  The  letters  are  arranged 
alphabetically,andrunfromAlcottandAllibone 
to  Robert  C. Winthrop and Elizur  Wright;  and 
in  point  of  time  they  range  from  Richard  H. 
Dana  the  elder,  who  helped  found  "The  North 
American  Review  "  in  1 8 1 5,  down  to  authors 
who  are  still  struggling.  Many  of  these  letters 
throw  light  upon  the  unwritten  history  of  the 
Atlantic,  besides  illustrating  the  literary  con- 

1  Kindly  loaned  to  me  by  its  present  owner,  George  F. 
Babbitt  of  Boston. 

[  207  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

ditions  which  prevailed  in  this  country  during 
Underwood's  life.  One  of  the  earliest  letters, 
for  example,  is  from  N.  P.  Willis,  then  a  name 
of  first  rank  in  the  literary  profession.  Under 
wood,  who  was  born  in  Enfield,  Massachusetts, 
in  1825,  had  left  Amherst  College  without 
graduating,  had  gone  to  Kentucky,  taught 
school,  studied  law,  and  married.  But  he  yearned 
for  a  literary  career,  and  sent  specimens  of  his 
poetry  to  Mr.  Willis,  who  was  then  in  Wash 
ington.  The  veteran's  reply  is  interesting,  and 
his  bland  phrase,  "  Your  poetry  is  as  good  as 
Byron's  was  at  the  same  stage  of  progress," 
betrays  both  a  kind  heart  and  a  long  editorial 
experience. 

WASHINGTON,  April  29  [about  1 848] . 
MY  DEAR  SIR, — Your  letter  forwarded  to  me 
here  is  just  received,  and  I  hasten  to  comply 
with  your  request,  tho'  young  poets  ask  advice 
very  much  as  lovers  do  after  they  are  irrevocably 
engaged.  In  the  first  place,  however,  I  should 
always  advise  against  adopting  the  literary  pro 
fession,  for  at  the  best,  it  is  like  making  waggon- 
traces  of  your  hair  —  wholly  insufficient  for 
wants  which  increase  as  the  power  gives  way. 
Your  poetry  is  as  good  as  Byron's  was  at  the 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

same  stage  of  progress — correct,  and  evidently 
inspired,  and  capable  of  expansion  into  stuff  for 
fame.  But  there  are  many  men  of  the  same 
calibre  who  would  go  on,  and  starve  up  to  the 
empty  honor  of  being  remembered  (first)  when 
dead,  were  it  not  that  they  could  turn  their  more 
common  powers  to  account,  and  live  by  meaner 
industry.  Poetry  is  an  angel  in  your  breast,  and 
you  had  better  not  turn  her  out  to  be  your  maid- 
of-all-work.  As  to  writing  for  magazines,  that  is 
very  nearly  done  with  as  a  matter  of  profit.  The 
competition  for  notoriety  alone  gives  the  editors 
more  than  they  can  use.  You  could  not  sells,  piece 
of  poetry  now  in  America.  The  literary  avenues 
are  all  overcrowded,  and  you  cannot  live  by  the 
pen  except  as  a  drudge  to  a  newspaper.  Not 
withstanding  all  this,  you  will  probably  try  it, 
and  all  I  can  say  is,  —  that  you  shall  have  my 
sympathy  and  what  aid  I  can  give  you.  If  you 
should  come  to  New  York  and  will  call  on  me, 
I  shall  be  happy  to  say  more  than  I  have  time  to 
write.  Yours  very  truly, 

N.  P.  WILLIS. 

Underwood's  sojourn  in  Kentucky  increased 
his  native  hatred  of  slavery,  and  upon  his  return 
[  209  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

to  Massachusetts  in  1850  he  enlisted  in  the 
Free-Soil  movement.  In  1852  he  was  appointed 
Clerk  of  the  State  Senate,  Henry  Wilson  being 
its  President.  His  acquaintance  with  public 
men  grew  rapidly,  and  by  1853,  when  he  was 
but  twenty-eight,  he  conceived  the  notion  of 
a  new  magazine.  Some  such  project  had  long 
been  in  the  air,  as  is  evident  from  the  letters  of 
Emerson,  Alcott,  and  Lowell,  but  Underwood 
was  the  first  to  crystallize  it.  It  was  to  be  anti- 
slavery  in  politics,  but  was  to  draw  for  general 
contributions  upon  the  best  writers  of  the  coun 
try.  He  succeeded  in  interesting  J.  P.  Jewett, 
who  had  undertaken  the  publication  of  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  "  after  the  over-cautious  Phillips 
had  rejected  it, and  who  was  also  the  publisher 
of  Whittier's  poems.  With  characteristic  eager 
ness  Underwood  then  wrote  to  desirable  con 
tributors,  sketching  the  proposed  magazine, 
and  soliciting  their  cooperation.  In  selecting 
some  of  the  letters  received  in  reply,  the  anti- 
slavery  men  shall  be  heard  first.  Wendell  Phil 
lips  was  dubious :  — 

LYNN,  Aug.  4th  [1853]. 

DEAR  FRIEND, —  I  have  given  your  idea  the 
best  consideration  in  my  power,  and  am  obliged 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

to  come  to  a  different  conclusion  from  Messrs. 
May  and  Garrison.  I  believe  the  plan  has  been 
tried  thrice  within  my  time  (I  mean  my  anti- 
slavery  life)  and  has  each  time  failed.  I  cannot 
think,  therefore,  there  is  much  chance  for  the 
periodical  sketched  in  your  excellent  letter.  At 
the  same  time  I  am  aware  my  judgment  on  such 
a  point  is  worth  little ;  and  that  an  experiment  so 
useful  to  the  general  cause  of  Reform  may  not 
be  lost,  if  practicable,  I  have  enclosed  your  let 
ter,  with  a  few  lines,  to  Theodore  Parker,  asking 
him  to  communicate  to  you  his  mature  opinion 
on  the  subject. 

Believe  me  very  truly  yours, 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 
Mr.  F.  H.  UNDERWOOD. 

Theodore  Parker  was  no  more  encourag 
ing  :- 

BOSTON,  ii   Oct.,  1853. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  The  more  I  think  of  your 
enterprise  the  less  likely  it  seems  to  me  to  suc 
ceed  at  present.  You  know  how  the  "  Com 
monwealth"  struggled  along,  paying  nothing 
and  hardly  enabling  Mr.  Wright  to  live.  I  fear 
this  undertakingwould  meet  with  the  same  fate 

[211    ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

— at  first.  Of  its  ultimate  triumph  I  have  little 
doubt.  I  laid  the  matter  before  the  gentlemen 
I  spoke  of  Sunday  night,  and  that  seemed  to  be 
their  opinion. 

Mr.  Phillips  and  Dr.  Howe  knowmuch  more 
about  such  things  than  I  do,  and  their  opinion 
would  be  better  than  mine.  I  am  sorry  to  seem 
to  pour  cold  water  on  your  scheme,  for  I  should 
be  glad  to  see  it  succeed  —  and  to  help  it  for 
ward  if  possible. 

Yours  faithfully, 

THEO.  PARKER. 
Mr.  UNDERWOOD. 

John  G.  Palfrey  thought  better  of  the  idea, 
although  in  the  first  of  the  two  letters  to  be 
quoted,  he  speaks  of  the  new  periodical  as  "  a 
weekly  newspaper."  The  second  letter  shows 
a  clearer  understanding  of  the  project. 

CAMBRIDGE,  Oct.  10,  1853. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  with  great  pleasure 
heard  from  you  of  your  project  of  a  weekly 
newspaper,  to  be  devoted  to  the  exposition  and 
defence  of  anti-slavery  principles.  I  believe  that 
there  is  an  opening  for  a  paper  of  this  descrip 
tion,  and  I  have  full  confidence  in  your  ability, 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

and  that  of  your  proposed  coadjutor,  to  con 
duct  it  to  the  acceptance  and  advantage  of  the 
public. 

With  great  regard,  I  am, 

Dear  Sir,  your  friend  and  servant, 

JOHN  G.  PALFREY. 

CAMBRIDGE,  Nov.  22,  1853. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, —  I  am  much  gratified  to  hear 
that  there  is  a  prospect  of  a  speedy  accom 
plishment  of  your  plan  of  a  literary  and  anti- 
slavery  Monthly  Magazine.   I  shall  be  very 
happy  to  contribute  to  the  work  whenever  it  is 
in  my  power.  I  have  little  hope,  however,  of 
doing  so  this  winter,  my  time  being  pretty 
strictly  appropriated  till  next  May. 
With  great  regard,  I  am, 

Dear  Sir,  your  friend  and  servant, 

JOHN  G.  PALFREY. 

James  Freeman  Clarke  was  also  optimistic : — 
BOSTON,  November  23,  1853. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  received  yesterday  your 
favor  of  the  2ist,  in  reference  to  the  new  Maga 
zine  about  to  be  published  by  J.  P.  Jewett  & 
Co.  The  plan  appears  to  me  an  excellent  one, 
and  I  am  especially  glad  that  it  is  to  be  started 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

by  Publishers  whose  business  energy  will  place 
the  publication  part  on  such  a  basis  as  will,  I 
trust,  ensure  success  to  the  enterprise. 

I  shall  be  happy  to  be  one  of  the  Contribu 
tors  to  such  a  Magazine,  and  to  write  both  for 
the  Reformatory  and  Miscellaneous  Depart 
ments.  .  .  . 

JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE. 
F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 

The  next  three  letters  will  serve  to  illustrate 
the  attitude  of  the  New  York  writing  men. 

"Tribune"  Office, 
NEW  YORK,  Nov.  20,  1853. 

DEAR  SIR,  — Your  favor  of  the  i8th  is  re 
ceived.  It  will  not  be  in  my  power  to  furnish  an 
article  for  the  first  number  of  your  proposed 
periodical,  as  I  have  a  number  of  extra  engage 
ments  now  on  hand.  If  it  suits  your  purpose  to 
receive  a  monthly  letter  from  New  York,  giving 
an  off-hand  summary  of  the  literature,  art,  and 
social  gossip  of  New  York,  I  might  incline  to 
furnish  it.  I  will  communicate  your  note  to 
Dana  and  Fry,  and  am  truly  yours, 

GEORGE  RIPLEY. 
F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

NEW  YORK,  Nov.  24th  [1853]. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Although  I  have  had  so 
much  experience  in  the  starting  of  new  peri 
odicals  as  to  be  now  habitually  doubtful  of  the 
success  of  any,  I  am  still  pleased  with  your  pro 
ject,  because  I  think  the  country  wants  an  out- 
and-out  independent  and  freespoken  organ  of 
the  kind  you  propose.  "Putnam's"  is  capital  in 
its  way,  but  is  necessarily  limited  in  its  range  of 
topics.  I  cannot  however  promise  to  write  you 
anything  at  present,  as  my  engagements  are  so 
many  and  exacting.  Nor  have  I  anything  on 
hand,  except  a  few  light  travelling  sketches 
which  would  not  perhaps  suit  your  purposes. 

Mr.  Bryant  desires  me  to  say  that  he  is  already 
engaged  to  write  for  certain  periodicals  only, 
and  regrets  his  inability  to  lend  you  his  name. 
Mr.  Bigelow  is  not  in  the  city. 

With  many  wishes  for  your  success  I  have 
the  honour  to  be 

Your  obt.  Servant, 

PARKE  GODWIN. 

CANANDAIGUA,  N.  Y.,  Nov.  24th,  '53. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Your  favor  of  the  I9th, 
which  was  sent  after  me  from  home,  has  just 

[  "s] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

reached  me.  It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to 
accede  to  your  request,  but  it  is  impossible.  My 
engagements  and  occupations  are  such  that  I 
could  not  possibly  assist  in  your  enterprise,  and 
while  I  am  honored  by  your  application,  and 
should  be  flattered  by  the  announcement  of  my 
name  as  a  contributor,  it  would  be  a  promise 
which  I  could  not  perform. 

I  am  compelled  to  decline,  but  assure  you 
that  I  attach  the  weightiest  significance  to  the 
refractory  sentence  of  your  letter,  and  am 
Very  truly  yours, 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 
Mr.  UNDERWOOD. 

For  the  model  of  an  exact,  business-like  re 
ply,  however,  demanding  the  "  rate  per  page 
(describing  the  page),"  we  must  turn  to  one  of 
the  Concord  dreamers. 

CONCORD,  Nov.  zzd,  '53. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  If  you  will  inform  me  in  season 
at  what  rate  per  page  (describing  the  page)  you 
will  pay  for  accepted  articles,  —  returning  re 
jected  within  a  reasonable  time,  —  and  your 
terms  are  satisfactory,  I  will  forward  something 
[116] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

for  your  magazine  before  Dec.  5th,  and  you 
shall  be  at  liberty  to  put  my  name  on  the  list 
of  contributors. 

Yours, 

HENRY  D.  THOREAU. 

Apparently  Underwood's  rejoinder  was  sat 
isfactory ,  for  Thoreau's  next  letter  was  accom 
panied  by  an  actual  manuscript. 

CONCORD,  Dec.  zd,  1853. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  send  you  herewith  a  complete 
article  of  fifty-seven  pages.  "  Putnam's  Maga 
zine"  pays  me  four  dollars  a  page,  but  I  will 
not  expect  to  receive  more  for  this  than  you  pay 
to  any  one  else.  Of  course  you  will  not  make  any 
alterations  or  omissions  without  consulting  me. 
Yours, 

HENRY  D.  THOREAU. 

The  plan  was  to  issue  the  first  number  early 
in  January,  1 8  54,  and  the  contributors,  as  Tho 
reau's  first  letter  indicates,  were  asked  to  send 
copy  by  December  5. 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  then  a 
young  minister  in  Worcester,  has  printed  in  his 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

"Old  Cambridge  "  the  letters  which  he  received 
from  Underwood.  The  first  one  ran  :  — 

BOSTON,  November  21,  1853. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Messrs.  J.  P.  Jewett  &  Co. 
of  this  city  propose  to  establish  a  Literary  and 
Anti-Slavery  magazine  —  commencing  prob 
ably  in  January.  The  publishers  have  energy 
and  capital,  and  will  spare  no  pains  to  make  the 
enterprise  completely  successful.  They  will  en 
deavor  to  obtain  contributions  from  the  best 
writers,  and  will  pay  liberally  for  all  they  make 
use  of.  Politics  and  the  "  Humanities,"  though, 
of  course,  prominent  as  giving  character  to  the 
Magazine,  will  occupy  but  a  small  portion  of  its 
pages.  Current  literary  topics,  new  books,  the 
Fine  Arts,  and  other  matters  of  interest  to  the 
reading  public  will  receive  the  most  careful  at 
tention. 

I  am  desired  to  request  you  to  become  a  con 
tributor.  If  you  are  disposed  to  favor  the  pro 
ject,  and  have  anything  written  at  this  time, 
please  forward  the  MS.  with  your  reply. 

If  not,  please  state  whether  we  may  expect  to 
receive  an  article  soon — if  before  December 
5th  it  will  materially  oblige  us.  If  permitted,  we 

[218] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

shall  announce  you  as  a  contributor, in  the  pro 
spectus.  The  articles  will  all  be  anonymous,  as 
in  "  Putnam's  Monthly." 

Your  early  attention  is  respectfully  solicited. 
With  high  regard, 

Truly  yours, 

FRANCIS  H.  UNDERWOOD. 

The  scrap-book  preserves  Higginson's  re 
ply,  —  a  letter  characterized  by  the  prompt 
helpfulness  which  the  successive  editors  of  the 
Atlantic  have  happily  experienced  for  more 
than  half  a  century. 

WORCESTER,  Nov.  21,  1853. 

DEAR  SIR, —  I  hear  with  great  interest  of  the 
proposed  magazine,  though  I  have  grown  dis 
trustful  of  such  enterprises,  especially  when  of 
Boston  origin.  The  publishers  you  name  are  in 
a  position  to  do  it,  if  any  are.  I  gladly  contrib 
ute  my  name  to  the  list  of  writers  —  and  any 
counsel  I  can  ever  give,  when  needed. 

As  to  the  positive  amount  of  literary  aid  to 
be  expected  from  me,  I  must  speak  very  cau 
tiously.  I  am  very  much  absorbed  by  necessary 
writing,  speaking  and  studies,  and  it  is  hard  to 
do  collateral  work  ;  I  have  been  engaged  some 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

four  months  to  write  an  article  for  the  "  Chris 
tian  Examiner"  on  Collier's  Shakespeare ;  have 
all  the  books  collected  and  yet  have  done  about 
nothing  and  finally  given  up  that  undertaking. 

Besides,  I  have  access  to  "Putnam"  for  any 
thing  of  a  literary  character  in  prose  and  verse, 
—  a  better  paymaster,  I  suspect,  than  the  new 
magazine  can  be  expected  to  be.  To  be  sure, 
"Putnam"  is  not  .  .  .  reformatory,  and  I 
should  feel  much  more  interest  in  yours.  But 
then  again  I  suspect  Mr.  Jewett  would  be  much 
more  keen  on  the  scent  of  any  theological 
heresy,  however  latent,  than  the  editors  of 
"  Putnam." 

But  I  know  I  shall  have  something  in  time  to 
offer,  tho'  I  have  nothing  now  at  hand  —  nor 
can  I  before  Dec.  5.  I  hv.  in  mind  especially  an 
essay  wh.  will  actually  give  a  new  aspect  of  the 
slavery  subject! — called  "The  Romance  of 
Slavery  or  American  Feudalism,"  grouping  the 
points  of  analogy  between  Mediaeval  slavery 
and  southern.  Of  Hebrew  and  Roman  slavery 
there  has  been  an  excess  of  discussion: — of 
Mediaeval  serfdom  hardly  anything  is  known 
and  yet  the  analogy  is  more  picturesque  and 
more  thorough.  I  read  a  lecture  on  this  subject 

[   220   ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

at  Salem  this  winter,  but  it  will  not  be  in  con 
dition  to  print,  for  a  month  or  two.  It  will  be, 
in  that  time,  unless  I  decide  to  keep  it  for  a 
lecture. 

However  it  is  a  new  matter  to  me  (your  mag 
azine)  and  these  are  only  first  impressions.  I 
answer  thus  promptly,  partly  to  express  my 
good  will  and  give  my  name,  and  partly  to  sug 
gest  some  other  names,  as  follows:  Rev.  D.  A. 
Wasson  of  Groveland,  minister  of  an  Inde 
pendent  Church  —  a  man  of  rare  and  growing 
intellect — author  of  several  verses  and  a  re 
markable  article  on  Lord  Bacon  in  the  "  New 
Englander." 

Miss  Anne  Whitney  of  Watertown,  Mass., 
author  of  two  remarkable  poems  in  my  "Tha- 
latta" ;  I  know  of  no  American  woman  with  so 
much  poetical  genius,  now  that  Mrs.  J.  R. 
Lowell  is  gone. 

Miss  Eliza  Sproat  of  Philadelphia,  author  of 
the  original  and  admirable  "  Stories  for  Chil 
dren  and  Poets"  in  the  "National  Era." 

But  especially  and  above  all,  William  Henry 
Hurlbut  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  author  of  those 
brilliant  letters  fr.Cuba  in  "National  Era"  and 
of  some  fine  articles  (a  few  years  ago)  in  "  N. 

C 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

A.  Review"  and  "Chr.  Examiner."  He  is  a 
young  man  of  the  most  versatile  talent,  great 
industry,  and  (except  Theo.  Parker)  the  most 
universal  scholar  I  know.  He  is  a  native  of 
Charleston,  S.  C.,  but  understands  slavery  thor 
oughly  and  is  (between  ourselves)  the  man  to 
edit  the  magazine.  I  say  this  with  the  utmost 
delicacy  of  opinion — not  knowing  whether  you 
yourself  are  to  be  Financier  or  Agent  or  Editor 
of  the  concern. 

I  suggest  the  names  of  these  contributors, 
not  for  their  sakes,  but  for  that  of  the  magazine, 
to  which  they  would  all  prove  valuable  auxil 
iaries.  But  perhaps  you  think  I  have  been  quite 
too  officious  already. 

Cordially  yours, 

T.  W.  HlGGINSON. 

To  this  Underwood  replied  with  the  second 
of  the  letters  printed  in  "  Old  Cambridge  " :  — 

BOSTON,  November  25,  1853. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, —  Our  Magazine  is  not  yet 
definitely  determined  upon.  Probably,  however, 
it  will  be  commenced.  The  letters  I  wrote  for 
the  enlistment  of  contributors  have  been  mostly 
[  222  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

answered  favorably.  We  have  already  a  very  re 
spectable  list  engaged.  We  are  waiting  to  hear 
definitely  from  Mrs.Stowe,who  we  bopevf\\\  be 
induced  to  commence  in  the  Feb.  no.  a  new 
story.  We  are  thankful  for  the  interest  you 
•manifest  by  sending  new  names.  I  shall  write  to 
Mr.  Hurlbut  at  once,  and  to  the  others  in  a  day 
or  two.  Those  who  have  already  promised  to 
write  are  Mr.  Carter  (formerly  of  the  "Com 
monwealth"),  who  will  furnish  a  political  article 
for  each  number,  Mr.  Hildreth  (very  much  in 
terested  in  the  undertaking),  Thos.  W.  Parsons, 
author  of  an  excellent  translation  of  Dante, 
Parke  Godwin  of  the  New  York  "Evening 
Post,"  Mr.  Ripley  of  the  "  Tribune,"  Dr.  Elder 
of  Phila.,  H.D.  Thoreau  of  Concord,  Theodore 
Parker  (my  most  valued  friend),  Edmund 
Quincy,  James  R.  Lowell  (from  whom  I  have 
a  most  exquisite  gem). 

Many  to  whom  I  have  written  have  not  re 
plied  as  yet. 

I  shall  have  the  general  supervision  of  the 
Magazine, — intending  to  get  the  best  aid  from 
professed  litterateurs  in  the  several  depart 
ments.  We  do  expect  to  pay  as  much  as  "  Put 
nam" —  that  is  at  the  rate  of  three  dollars  for 
[  223  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

such  pages  as  "Putnam's,"  though  it  is  prob 
able  that  we  shall  use  a  trifle  larger  type  than 
our  New  York  contemporary.  Poetry,  of 
course,  we  pay  for  according  to  value.  There 
are  not  above  six  men  in  America  (known  to 
me)  to  whom  I  would  pay  anything  for  poetry. 
There  is  no  medium ;  it  is  good  or  it  is  good- 
for-nothing.  Lowell  I  esteem  most;  after  him 
Whittier  (the  last' I  confidently  expect  to  secure). 

The  first  no.  will  probably  be  late — as  late 
as  Jan.  5,or  even  loth.  It  is  unavoidable.  But 
in  Feb.  we  shall  get  before  the  wind. 

Mr.  Jewett  will  be  liberal  as  to  heresy.  In 
deed  he  is  almost  a  heretic  himself.  For  myself 
I  am  a  member  of  Mr.  Parker's  society ;  but  as 
we  must  get  support  moral  and  pecuniary  from 
the  whole  community  we  shall  strive  to  offend 
neither  side.  In  haste, 

Most  gratefully  yours, 

FRANCIS  H.  UNDERWOOD. 

Whittier,  who  was  on  cordial  terms  with  his 
publisher,  Jewett,  writes  with  enthusiasm:  — 

AMESBURY,  25,  n  Mo.,  1853. 
DEAR  FRIEND, — I  am  delighted  with  the 
prospect  of  a  free  magazine.  It  will  go:  the 
[  224  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

time  has  come  for  it  and  Jewett  is  the  man 
for  the  hour. 

I  will  try  and  send  something  on  or  before 
the  5th.  At  any  rate  I  shall  be  glad  to  write  for 
it,  if  my  health  permits. 

Wilt  thou  say  to  Jewett  that  I  thank  him  for 
his  capital  getting  up  of  my  "Sabbath  Scene." 
The  illustrations  are  admirable — the  best  of 
the  kind  I  ever  saw.  They  do  great  credit  to 
the  artist. 

Thine  truly, 

J.  G.  WHITTIER. 

In  view  of  his  later  relations  with  the  maga 
zine,  Lowell's  letter — written  on  the  same  sheet 
as  the  manuscript  poem  which  accompanied  it 
— is  of  peculiar  interest.  The  allusion  in  the 
first  paragraph  is  to  the  death  of  Mrs.  Lowell, 
which  had  taken  place  a  month  earlier.  The 
poem, which  then  bore  the  title  "The  Oriole's 
Nest,"  with  its  sad  December  "  Palinode,"  re 
mained  unpublished  until  Lowell  himself,  as 
editor  of  the  Atlantic,  printed  it  under  the  title 
"The  Nest"  in  March,  1858.  It  was  not  in 
cluded  in  any  volume  of  his  verse  until  the 
publication  of  "Heartsease  and  Rue"  in  1888. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  made  an  effort  for 
you,  for  I  did  not  wish  merely  to  say  that  I 
wished  you  well.  This  is  an  old  poem,  and 
perhaps  it  seems  better  to  me  than  it  de 
serves  —  for  an  intense  meaning  has  been 
added  to  it. 

I  might  promise  you  something  for  February 
if  Mr.  Jewett  would  like  an  expensive  contribu 
tor  so  soon  again.  I  have  once  had  an  essay 
upon  Valentines  in  my  head,  and  I  could  re 
create  it.  It  would  suit  that  month. 

I  should  be  very  happy  to  see  you  some  even 
ing  to  talk  over  your  undertaking.  Mean 
while,  thanking  you  heartily  for  the  kind  note 
which  you  wrote  some  time  ago  and  wishing 
you  every  success, 

I  remain  heartily  yours, 

J.R.L. 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  articles  will   be 
anonymous  as  in  "  Putnam  "  ? 
F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 

ijrd  Nov.,  1853. 

Then  came,  alas,  the  hour  of  bitter  disap 
pointment.  J.  P.  Jewett  &  Co.  failed,  and  the 
magazine  plans  were  abandoned.  On  the  very 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

day  when  the  copy  for  the  January  number  was 
to  be  ready,  Lowell  is  writing  to  Underwood :  — 

ELM  WOOD,  5th  Dec.  1853. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  cannot  help  writing  a 
word  to  say  how  truly  sorry  I  was  to  hear  of  the 
blowing-up  of  your  magazine.  But  it  is  not 
so  irreparable  as  if  it  had  been  a  powder  maga 
zine,  though  perhaps  all  the  harder  to  be  borne 
because  it  was  only  in  posse  and  not  in  esse.  The 
explosion  of  one  of  these  castles  in  Spain  some 
times  sprinkles  dust  on  all  the  rest  of  our  lives, 
but  I  hope  you  are  of  better  heart  and  will  rather 
look  upon  the  affair  as  a  burning  of  your  ships 
which  only  makes  victory  the  more  imperative. 
Although  I  could  prove  by  a  syllogism  in  bar- 
bar  a  that  you  are  no  worse  offthan  you  were  be 
fore,  I  know  very  well  that  you  are>  for  if  it  be 
bad  to  lose  mere  coin,  it  is  still  worse  to  lose 
hope,  which  is  the  mint  in  which  most  gold  is 
manufactured. 

But,  after  all,  is  it  a  hopeless  case?  Consider 
yourself  to  be  in  the  position  of  all  the  world 
before  the  Mansion  of  our  Uncle  Thomas  (as 
I  suppose  we  must  call  it  now  —  it  has  grown  so 
respectable)  was  published,  and  never  to  have 

C 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

heard  of  this  Mr.  Jew-wit.   I  think  he  ought  to 

be that  something  ought  to  be  done  to 

him,  but,  for  that  matter,  nearly  all  booksellers 
stand  in  the  same  condemnation.  There  are  as 
good  fish  in  that  buccaneering  sea  of  Biblio- 
poly  as  ever  were  caught,  and  if  one  of  them 
have  broken  away  from  your  harpoon,  I  hope 
the  next  may  prove  a  downright  Kraaken  on 
whom,  if  needful,  you  can  pitch  your  tent  and 
live. 

Don't  think  that  I  am  trifling  with  you.  God 
knows  any  jests  of  mine  would  be  of  a  bitter  sort 
just  now,  but  I  know  it  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man 
to  be  made  to  look  at  his  misfortune  till  it  as 
sumes  its  true  relation  to  things  about  it.  So 
don't  think  me  intrusive  if  I  nudge  your  elbow 
among  the  rest. 

I  shall  come  and  see  you  some  evening  this 
week,  when  I  feel  myself  not  too  dull  to  be  in 
flicted  on  anybody,  and  till  then 

Believe  me  with  sincere  interest 
Yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

Whittier's  note,  written  the  next  day,  wasted 
no  words :  — 

[M8] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

AMESBURY,  6th  12  Mo.,  1853. 

DEAR  SIR, —  I  regret  the  failure  of  the  maga 
zine  project.  I  was  quite  sure  of  its  success. 

I  sent  thee  a  poem,  care  of  J.  P.  J.  &  Co., 
which  I  will  thank  thee  to  return  to  me  imme 
diately,  and  thereby  greatly  oblige 
Thine  truly, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

Whatever  publicity  may  have  been  given  to 
the  failure  of  Underwood's  scheme,  Longfellow 
apparently  knew  nothing  of  what  had  happened, 
as  the  date  of  the  following  dilatory  note  will 
show:  — 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  17,  1854. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  hope  you  will  pardon  me  for 
having  left  so  long  unanswered  your  letter  about 
a  New  Magazine  or  Literary  Paper.  The  fact  is, 
I  could  not  say  "Yes,"  and  did  not  want  to  say 
"  No  " ;  and  therefore  said  nothing. 

Between  the  two  forms  proposed,  a  Maga 
zine,  monthly,  and  a  weekly  newspaper,  I  should 
have  no  hesitation  in  deciding.  I  very  much  pre 
fer  the  latter.  You  can  fire  much  faster  and  do 
more  execution. 

As  to  being  a  contributor  to  either,  it  would 

[  229  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

not  at  present  be  in  my  power.  I  have  already 
more  engagements  on  hand  than  I  can  conven 
iently  attend  to,  and  should  feel  any  addition  a 
burden  and  a  vexation. 

I  remain,  with  best  wishes  for  your  success, 
Very  truly  yours, 

HENRY  W.  LONGFELLOW. 

By  the  time  Longfellow's  letter  was  written, 
however,  Underwood  had  entered  the  counting- 
room  of  Phillips,  Sampson  &  Co.  Here  he  lost 
no  opportunities  of  cultivating  the  acquaintance 
of  literary  men,  and  in  the  course  of  the  next  two 
or  three  years  he  became  prominent  in  the  social 
gatherings  ofthe  Cambridge  and  Boston  writers. 
He  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  that  loosely  or 
ganized  group  of  diners  who  after  1857  used  to 
meet  under  the  name  of  the  "Atlantic"  or  the 
"Magazine"  Club, — a  gathering  often  con 
fused  with  the  Saturday  Club,  although  Long 
fellow's  Journal  and  many  other  contemporary 
writings  clearly  make  the  distinction. 

The  following  letter  from  Professor  Felton 
gives  an  agreeable  picture  ofthe  cordial  relations 
ofthe  men  who  were  so  soon  to  become  contrib 
utors  to  the  long-deferred  magazine. 

[  230  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

CAMBRIDGE,  Friday,  Feb    13,1856. 
in  bed 

MY  DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD, —  I  am  much 
obliged  to  you  for  taking  the  trouble  of  inform 
ing  me  of  to-morrow's  dinner — but  it  is  like 
holding  a  Tantalus'  cup  to  my  lips.  I  returned 
ill  ten  days  ago  from  Washington,  having  taken 
the  epidemic  that  is  raging  there  at  the  pre 
sent  moment,  and  have  been  bed-ridden  ever 
since,  living  on  a  pleasant  variety  ofporridge  and 
paregoric.  Yesterday  I  was  allowed  to  nibble  a 
small  mutton-chop,  but  it  proved  too  much  for 
me  and — here  I  am,  worse  than  ever.  I  have  no 
definite  prospect  of  dining  at  Parker's  within  the 
present  century.  My  porridge  is  to  be  reduced 
to  gruel  and  paregoric  increased  to  laudanum.  I 
am  likely  to  be  brought  to  the  condition  of  the 
student  in  Canning's  play, — 

"  Here  doomed  to  starve  on  water  gru 
el  never  shall  I  see  the  U- 

niversity  of  Gottingen," 

and  never  dine  at  Parker's  again  !  I  hope  you 
will  have  a  jovial  time ;  may  the  mutton  be  ten 
der  and  the  goose  not  tough :  May  the  Moet 
sparkle  like  Holmes's  wit:  May  the  carving 
knives  be  as  sharp  as  Whipple's  criticism  :  May 

[  231  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

the  fruits  be  as  rich  as  Emerson's  philosophy : 
May  good  digestion  wait  on  appetite  and  H  ealth 
on  both  —  and  I  pray  you  think  of  me  as  the 
glass  goes  round.  .  .  . 

Horizontally  but  ever  cordially 
Your  friend, 

C.  C.  FELTON. 

The  following  note  of  regret  from  Emerson 
refers  to  another  Saturday  dinner  arranged  by 
Underwood. 

CONCORD,  26  August,  1856. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  did  not  receive  your  note 
until  the  Boston  train  had  already  gone  on  Sat 
urday.  I  am  well  contented  that  the  Club  should 
be  solidly  organized,  and  grow.  I  am  so  irregu 
larly  in  town,  that  I  dare  not  promise  myself  as  a 
constant  member,  yet  I  live  so  much  alone  that 
I  set  a  high  value  on  my  social  privileges,  and  I 
wish  by  all  means  to  retain  the  right  of  an  oc 
casional  seat. 

So,  with  thanks,  and  best  wishes, 
Yours, 

R.W.EMERSON. 

Mr.  UNDERWOOD. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

Underwood  now  thought  that  the  time  was 
ripe  for  bringing  the  magazine  project  to  the 
front  once  more.  Mr.  Phillips  was  slow  to  take 
an  interest  in  it,  but  finally  agreed  to  consult 
Mrs. Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  He  had  published 
her"Dred"in  1856,  although  he  had  previ 
ously  rejected  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  through 
fear  of  alienating  his  Southern  trade.  Mrs.  Stowe 
was  instantly  enthusiastic  over  the  proposed 
magazine,  and  promised  her  support.  It  was  this 
fact,  as  Underwood  often  said  in  later  years, 
which  decided  the  wavering  mind  of  the  pub 
lisher.  Then  came  the  famous  dinner  given  by 
Mr.  Phillips  on  May  5, 1857,  to  the  men  whose 
cooperation  was  thought  to  be  essential.  Al 
though  Mr.  Arthur  Oilman's  article,  printed 
in  the  Atlantic  for  November,  1907,  describes 
this  dinner,  it  may  be  interesting  to  quote 
Mr.  Phillips's  own  letter  about  it,  as  given  in 
Dr.  Hale's  "James  Russell  Lowell  and  his 
Friends"  (p.  157). 

[Mayig,  1857.] 

"  I  must  tell  you  about  a  little  dinner-party 
I  gave  about  two  weeks  ago.  It  would  be  proper, 
perhaps,  to  state  that  the  origin  of  it  was  a  de- 

C  233  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

sire  to  confer  with  my  literary  friends  on  a  some 
what  extensive  literary  project,  the  particulars 
of  which  I  shall  reserve  until  you  come.  But  to 
the  party:  My  invitations  included  only  R.  W. 
Emerson,  H.  W.  Longfellow,  J.R.  Lowell,  Mr. 
Motley  (the  c Dutch  Republic'  man),  O.  W. 
Holmes,  Mr.  Cabot,  and  Mr.  Underwood,  our 
literary  man.  Imagine  your  uncle  as  the  head  of 
such  a  table,  with  such  guests.  The  above  named 
were  the  only  ones  invited,  and  they  were  all 
present.  We  sat  down  at  three  P.  M.,  and  rose  at 
eight.  The  time  occupied  was  longer  by  about 
four  hours  and  thirty  minutes  than  I  am  in  the 
habit  of  consuming  in  that  kind  of  occupation, 
but  it  was  the  richest  time  intellectually  by  all 
odds  that  I  have  ever  had.  Leaving  myself  and 
'  literary  man '  out  of  the  group,  I  think  you  will 
agree  with  me  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  dupli 
cate  that  number  of  such  conceded  scholarship 
in  the  whole  country  besides. 

"Mr.  Emerson  took  the  first  post  of  honor  at 
my  right,  and  Mr.  Longfellow  the  second  at  my 
left.  The  exact  arrangement  of  the  table  was  as 
follows:  — 


]  , 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

MR.  UNDERWOOD 

CABOT  LOWELL 

MOTLEY  HOLMES 

LONGFELLOW  EMERSON 

PHILLIPS 

"They  seemed  so  well  pleased  that  they  ad 
journed,  and  invited  me  to  meet  them  again  to 
morrow,  when  I  shall  meet  the  same  persons, 
with  one  other  (Whipple,the  essayist)  added  to 
that  brilliant  constellation  of  philosophical,  po 
etical  and  historical  talent.  Each  one  is  known 
alike  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and  is  read  be 
yond  the  limits  oftheEnglish  language.  Though 
all  this  is  known  to  you, you  will  pardon  me  for 
intrudingituponyou.  But  still  I  have  the  vanity 
to  believe  that  you  will  think  them  the  most 
natural  thoughts  in  the  world  to  me.  Though 
I  say  it  that  should  not,  it  was  the  proudest  day 
of  my  life." 

"  In  this  letter,"  continues  Dr.  Hale,"  he  does 
not  tell  of  his  own  little  speech,  made  at  the 
launch.  But  at  the  time  we  all  knew  of  it.  He 
announced  the  plan  of  the  magazine  by  saying, 
cMr.  Cabot  is  much  wiser  than  I  am.  Dr.  Holmes 
can  write  funnier  verses  than  I  can.  Mr.  Motley 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

can  write  history  better  than  I.  Mr.  Emerson  is 
a  philosopher,  and  I  am  not.  Mr.  Lowell  knows 
more  of  the  old  poets  than  I.'  But  after  this 
confession  he  said/  But  none  of  you  knows  the 
American  people  as  well  as  I  do/ ' 

Exactly  what  Underwood  thought,  as  he 
listened  to  this  self-satisfied  speech  of  his  em 
ployer,  is  not  recorded  in  his  scrap-book.  Nor 
do  the  letters  of  the  next  few  weeks  throw  any 
light  upon  the  now  familiar  story  of  Lowell's 
accepting  the  editorship  of  the  new  magazine 
upon  the  condition  that  Holmes  should  be 
come  a  contributor,  and  of  Holmes's  sug 
gestion  that  it  should  be  christened  "The 
Atlantic  Monthly."  Who  chose  John  Win- 
throp's  head  as  a  design  for  the  brown  cover 
does  not  appear. 

Underwood,  meanwhile,  had  sailed  for  Eng 
land  in  June  to  secure  contributors.  He  en 
joyed  his  mission,  and  his  scrap-book  contains 
many  hospitable  notes  from  Charles  Reade, 
Wilkie  Collins,  John  Forster,  A.  H.  Clough, 
and  other  English  writers.  Reade  was  anxious 
to  become  acquainted  with  "  any  honest  pub 
lisher  who  can  be  brought  to  see  that  I  am 
worth  one  third  as  much  as  Thackeray,  or 

[236] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

more.  .  .  .  'White  Lies  '  is  my  best  story.'* 
In  reply  to  Underwood's  promise  that  the 
Atlantic's  rate  of  payment  would  be  equal  to 
that  offered  by  the  English  reviews,  James 
Hannay  replies  :  — 

"With  regard  to  the  remuneration,  as  you 
intimated  that  it  was  to  be  regulated  by  the 
best  pay  here,  I  may  mention  that  that  is  a 
guinea  a  page,  or  sixteen  guineas  a  sheet." 

Encouraged  by  promises  of  contributions, 
Underwood  sailed  for  home,  leaving  the  man 
uscripts  to  follow.  Some  of  them,  as  Mr.  Norton 
has  related  (Atlantic  for  November,  1907),  dis 
appeared  forever  with  Mr.  Norton's  unlucky 
trunk.  A  pleasant  note  from  Shirley  Brooks, 
of  the  staff  of  "  Punch,"  refers  to  the  loss  of 
his  manuscript:  — 

The  Garrick  Club, 
LONDON,  Oct.  28,  '57. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  been  away  from 
London,  or  your  letter  would  have  been  an 
swered  long  ago.  I  should  be  ashamed  to  look 
at  its  date  but  for  this,  and  you  will  have  been 
sure  that  the  delay  was  caused  in  some  such 
manner. 

The  mishap  to  which  it  refers,  (your  note, 

[237] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

I  mean)  you  will  almost  have  forgotten  by  this 
time.  I  have  no  copy  of  the  article  I  sent,  and 
whether  I  can  wind  myself  up  to  the  point  of 
doing  it,  decently,  twice,  I  hardly  know.  I 
seldom  can  manage  that.  But  as  soon  as  I 
have  my  hands  a  little  free  I  will  send  you 
something.  In  the  meantime  pray  consider 
that  there  is  no  pecuniary  matter  between  us  — 
accept  the  intention  to  serve  the  new  maga 
zine  —  and  let  us  start  fresh.  Only,  if  you 
notice  in  any  of  the  New  York  or  other  papers 
an  article  called  "My  Ghost/'  do  you  lay  hands 
on  the  pirate  —  the  N.  Y.  "  Herald  "  tells  us 
there  are  no  police  in  that  city,  or  virtually 
none,  but  by  that  time  things  may  be  better. 

If  you  can  forward  me  a  copy  of  the  maga 
zine  to  the  above  address,  I  shall  receive  it  with 
pleasure,  and  will  do  anything  I  can  to  pro 
mote  its  interests  here.  I  trust  that  none  of  the 
catastrophes  in  your  financial  world  have  af 
fected  anybody  whom  you  care  about.  Believe 
me, 

My  dear  Sir, 

Yours  very  truly, 

SHIRLEY  BROOKS. 
F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

By  August  Underwood  was  at  his  desk 
again,  soliciting  articles  from  American  authors. 
Herman  Melville,  the  author  of  "Moby  Dick" 
and  "  Typee,"  writes  :  — 

PlTTSFIELD,  Aug.    1 9th,    1857. 

GENTLEMEN, — Your  note  inviting  my  con 
tribution  to  your  proposed  magazine  was  re 
ceived  yesterday. 

I  shall  be  very  happy  to  contribute,  though 
I  cannot  now  name  the  day  when  I  shall  have 
any  article  ready. 

Wishing  you  the  best  success  in  your  laud 
able  enterprise,  I  am 

Very  truly  yours, 

H.  MELVILLE. 
PHILLIPS,  SAMPSON  &  Co. 
Boston. 

Horace  Mann,  to  whom  Underwood  had 
written  for  articles  in  1853,  replies  to  a  new 
invitation :  "  I  have  no  specific  topic  in  my 
mind,  but  I  could  not  write  on  anything  out 
side  of  your  c  cause  of  Freedom  and  advance 
ment  of  sound  literature/ ' 

Very  characteristic  is  this  note  from  William 
Douglas  O'Connor,  later  the  author  of  "  The 
Good  Grey  Poet." 

[  239  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Office  "  Saturday  Eve.  Post/' 
PHILADA.,  Aug.  2Oth,  '57. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  been  striving  very 
hard  to  make  kosmos  out  of  the  chaos  of  a 
MS  tale  I  have  for  some  time  had  on  hand — 
a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches  it  is,  at  present, 
existing  only  in  stray  sheets,  scraps  and  mem 
oranda  —  but  to  save  my  life  I  cannot  get  time 
enough  to  build  this  little  world  of  mine,  I 
have  to  give  so  much  to  the  affairs  of  this 
other  world  —  the  "Post "  —  of  which  I  am 
in  effect,  the  governor,  and  all  the  more  so  now 
since  the  ostensible  chief  is  away,  and  every 
thing  devolves  on  me.  I  am  secretly  chagrined 
to  think  that  my  little  star  will  not  be  visible 
this  month  in  the  march  of  your  galaxy,  for, 
dropping  similes,  I  wanted  very  much  to  have 
a  paper  of  mine  in  your  first  number.  How 
ever,  man  proposes  and  the  "  Saturday  Post" 
disposes,  so  I  submit,  as  you  will  find  less  dis 
appointment  in  doing. 

I  shall  still  endeavor  to  give  you  a  story, — 
for  the  second  number  if  possible,  or  if  not,  for 
a  later  number,  —  but  I  beg  of  you  to  expect 
nothing  of  me,  for  though  my  promises  are 
words  of  fate,  I  am  unable  to  make  them  nowr 
[  240  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

my  time  being  already  engrossed  so  much  as 
to  make  it  difficult  even  to  attend  to  my  cas 
ual  correspondence.  And  then,  besides,  when 
you  do  get  a  MS  of  mine,  it  is  quite  likely 
you  will  not  like  it,  the  revolution  and  the 
radicalisms  running  so  naturally  to  my  pen, 
and  my  tales  being  my  only  present  means  of 
securing  to  myself  the  luxury  of  my  individual 
views  and  opinions. 

With  many   regrets  and  hopes,   and  with 
twice  as  many  good  wishes  for  the  prosperity 
of  the  coming  magazine,  I  remain  very 
Truly  yours, 

WM.  D.  O'CONNOR. 

F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 

J.  T.  Trowbridge's  note,  accompanying  his 
contribution  to  the  first  number,  shows  that 
he  thought  that  the  name  of  the  magazine 
was  not  yet  determined  upon  :  — 

OGDEN,  Aug.  24,  1857. 

MY   DEAR  U ,  I  send  you  a  sketch.  I 

don't  know  whether  it  is  good  or  bad.  It  is  a 
subject  I  have  long  wished  to  write  upon  ;  and 
on  the  rec't  of  your  letter,  I  dashed  off  the 
history  of  John  Henry  Pendlam.  I  can  swear 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

that  he  is  a  true  type  of  a  certain  class  of  re 
formers  ;  I  have  avoided  burlesque  and  exag 
geration.  But  whether  the  story  is  suitable  for 
the  Magazine,  you  must  determine.  Do  not 
use  it,  if  it  is  not  up  to  the  mark. 

How  about  the  name  ?  If  the  "American 
Monthly"  will  not  do,  what  do  you  say  to 
"  The  Anglo-American  "  ? 

J.  T.  TROWBRIDGE. 

P.  S.  —  I  have  written  to  R.  H.  Stoddard  to 
send  you  a  story. 

Address  me  at  Wallingford,  Vermont. 

PAUL. 

Here,  too,  is  the  first  of  several  girlish  let 
ters  from  a  woman  whose  stories  gave  keen 
pleasure  to  the  early  readers  of  the  magazine, 
and  whose  achievement  as  a  pioneer  in  the  field 
in  which  Miss  Jewett,  Miss  Wilkins,  and 
Miss  Alice  Brown  have  since  wrought  so  nota 
bly  still  awaits  due  recognition  by  the  critics:  — 

HARTFORD,  August  29th,  1857. 
Mr.  F.  H.  UNDERWOOD. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  regret  that  my  absence  from 
home  prevented  my  receiving  your  letter  of 
[  242  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

the  25th  until  to-day.  I  have  been  idle  all  sum 
mer,  because  I  am  not  strong,  and  was  for 
bidden  to  write,  so  I  have  nothing  to  offer  you 
that  is  very  fresh,  or  that  I  should  choose  to 
make  a  "  first  appearance  "  in.  I  have  a  little 
sketch  of  New  England  life  called  "Turkey 
Tracks,"  not  copied ;  a  romance  Mr.  Curtis 
had  accepted  for  "  Putnam,"  "  Maya,  the 
Child  of  the  Kingdom,"  which  I  have  sent 
for ;  and  a  story  partly  written  —  "  Rachel's 
Refusal  "  ;  any  one  of  these  I  could  send  you 
within  a  week  from  date,  if  you  let  me  know 
directly.  I  hope  by  and  by  to  do  something 
better  for  you,  when  I  shall  have  time  and 
strength  to  fulfill  other  and  previous  engage 
ments. 

Be  so  good  as  to  give  me  a  definite  address 
for  the  MSS.,  and  let  me  know  your  decision 
as  soon  as  is  quite  convenient.  Letters  will 
most  securely  reach  me  directed  to  the  care  of 
Mr.  H.  W.  Terry.  With  the  best  wishes  for 
your  success  I  remain 

Yours  very  truly, 

ROSE  TERRY. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  say  that  the  romance  is 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

considered  by  one  of  my  critical  friends  the  best 
thing  I  have  ever  written.  I  cannot  judge  of 
these  things  myself. 

We  have  been  long  in  reaching  the  actual  first 
number  of  the  Atlantic.  The  financial  stress  of 
1857  harassed  Messrs.  Phillips,  Sampson  & 
Co.,  and  publication  was  nearly  suspended,  after 
all.  But  in  October  the  first  issue  appeared, 
under  date  of  November.  Underwood's  scrap- 
book  contains  this  highly  interesting  note  from 
Emerson,concerningeditorial  suggestions  upon 
two  of  the  four  poems  which  he  contributed,  in 
addition  to  the  prose  essay  on  "  Illusions,"  to 
the  initial  number.  If  Lowell  suggested,  as  he 
apparently  did,  the  substitution  of 

«« If,  on  the  heath,  beneath  the  moon" 
for 

"  If,  on  the  heath,  under  the  moon," 

in  the  fourth  stanza  of  the  "Rommany  Girl," 
he  certainly  proposed"  anew  cacophony  "  where 
there  was  undoubtedly  an  "old  one."  Emerson 
changed  the  line  in  later  years  to 

"  If,  on  the  heath,  below  the  moon." 

But  it  is  clear  from  this  note  that  we  owe  the 

[  244  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

present  form  of  the  superb  opening  line  of 
"Days,"  — 

"  Daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  Days/' 

to  the  editor,  who  had  objected  to  "hypocriti 
cal." 

CONCORD,  Sept.  24,  1857. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  return  the  proof  in  which  I 
have  no  correction  to  make.  Mr.  Lowell  showed 
a  bad  rhythm,  but  I  do  not  quite  like  the  new 
word  he  offered  me  — 

"  benea/£  the  moon," 

where  the  new  cacophony  troubles  my  ears  as 
much  as  the  old  one;  and  for  the  second  sug 
gestion  about  the  word  "hypocritical,"  he  is 
right  again,  but  I  cannot  mend  it  to-day.  If  he 
will  alter  them,  as  he  proposed  before,  or  other 
wise,  he  has  my  thankful  consent. 
Yours, 

R.  W.  EMERSON. 
Mr.  UNDERWOOD. 

It  is  well  known,  also,  that  Lowell  suggested 
to  Whittier  the  peculiar  form  of  the  refrain  which 
adds  so  greatly  to  the  effectiveness  of  "  Skip 
per  Ireson's  Ride."  In  Lowell's  "  Letters"  we 
read :  — 

[245  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

CAMBRIDGE,  November  4,  1857. 

MY  DEAR  WHITTIER, — I  thank  you  heart 
ily  for  the  ballad,  which  will  go  into  the  next 
number.  I  like  it  all  the  better  for  its  provin 
cialism — in  all  fine  pears,  you  know,  we  can 
taste  the  old  pucker. 

I  knew  the  story  well.  I  am  familiar  with 
Marblehead  and  its  dialect,  and  as  the  burthen 
is  intentionally  provincial,  I  have  taken  the  lib 
erty  to  print  it  in  such  a  way  as  shall  give  the 
peculiar  accent — thus  — 

"  Cap'n  Ireson  for  his  horrd  hort 

Was  torred  and  feathered  and  corried  in  a  corrt. ' ' 

That's  the  way  I  've  always  "horrd  it"  — 
only  it  began  "OldFlud  Ireson."  What  a  good 
name  Ireson  (son  of  wrath)  is  for  the  hero  of 
such  a  history.  .  .  . 

The  scrap-book  contains  Whittier's  reply :  — 

AMESBURY,  6th,  nth  Mo.,  1857. 

DRt  FRIEND,  —  I  thank  thee  for  sending  the 
proof  of  Cap  Ireson,  with  thy  suggestions.  I 
adopt  them,  as  thou  wilt  see,  mainly.  It  is  an 
improvement.  As  it  stands  now,  I  like  the  thing 
well — "hugely,"  as  Capt  Shandy  would  say. 

As  to  the  pecuniary  allusion  of  thy  note,  I 

[  246] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

am  sorely  in  want  of  money  (as  who  is  not  at 
this  time)  —  but  of  course  will  await  your  con 
venience. 

The  magazine  will,  shall,  must  succeed.  The 
election  of  Banks  is  a  good  beginning  for  it. 
Thy  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

That  the  ballad  made  an  immediate  im 
pression  is  seen  in  this  note  from  Fitz-James 
O'Brien,  who  writes  about  the  acceptance  of 
his  brilliant  story  "The  Diamond  Lens":  — 

Harper's,  FRANKLIN  SQ'RE, 

Nov.  z8th  [1857]. 

DEAR  SIRS,  —  I  am  much  pleased  that  my 
story  has  met  your  approval,  and  shall  be  glad 
at  some  future  time  to  present  you  with  other 
articles. 

I  have  not  calculated  the  number  of  pages 
which  the  "  Diamond  Lens  "  will  make,  and 
will  thank  you  to  have  the  computation  made 
and  remit  to  me  the  amount  according  to  what 
ever  scale  of  prices  you  see  fit  to  include  it  in. 

It  will  be  in  a  great  measure  a  labor  of  love 
to  write  for  a  magazine  of  so  high  a  tone  as  the 

[247] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Atlantic.  I  have  long  felt  the  want  of  a  channel 
in  which  to  place  articles  on  which  I  might  be 
stow  labor  and  thought.  Here  in  New  York  we 
are  far  too  apt  to  neglect  the  higher  aims. 

Will  you  permit  me  to  express  the  great  plea 
sure  I  have  experienced  in  reading  "  Skipper 
Ireson's  Ride"  in  your  last  number.  It  abounds 
in  lyrical  fire,  pathos  and  strength. 
Yours  truly, 

FITZ-JAMES  O'BRIEN. 

Messrs.  PHILLIPS,  SAMPSON  £3"  Co. 

This  reminds  me  that  Thomas  Bailey  Al- 
drich,  writing  in  1897  to  a  member  of  the  At 
lantic's  staff  who  had  prepared  a  sketch  of  the 
first  forty  years  of  the  magazine,  referred  thus 
to  O'Brien's  story  : — 

".  .  .  I  am  sorry  that  the  Atlantic  did  not 
put  in  its  claim  to  being  the  father  of  the  short 
story.  Of  course  there  were  excellent  short  sto 
nes  before  the  Atlantic  was  born — Poe's  and 
Hawthorne's — but  the  magazine  gave  the  short 
story  a  place  which  it  had  never  before  reached. 
It  began  with  cThe  Diamond  Lens'  of  Fitz- 
James  O'Brien,  and  ended  with — well,  it  has 
not  ended  yet." 

C 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

The  praise  elicited  by  the  early  numbers  is 
fairly  represented  by  this  note  from  Henry 
Ward  Beecher:  — 

BROOKLYN,  Oct.  31,  '57. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, —  The  Atlantic  has  a  good 
look  —  robust  and  bold.  I  hope  for  it  a  historic 
reputation.  As  New  England  has  been  the 
Brain  of  America,  it  would  be  a  pity  if  her  mouth 
did  not  speak  worthy  of  her  head  and  heart. 
Very  truly  yours, 

H.  W.  BEECHER. 

Although  the  authorship  of  the  articles  was 
supposed  to  be  kept  secret,  a  privately  printed 
list  of  the  authors  in  each  number  was  soon  sent 
out  to  newspaper  reviewers  and  other  friends  of 
the  magazine.  It  was  not  until  the  tenth  vol 
ume,  however,  in  1 862,  that  an  index  of  authors 
was  printed  at  the  completion  of  each  volume. 
The  first  signed  articles  to  appear  were  Harriet 
Hosmer's  "  Process  of  Sculpture  "  and  Goldwin 
Smith's  "England  and  America,"  in  December, 
1 864.  Occasional  signed  articles  followed,  such 
as  William  M.  Rossetti's  in  1866  and  George 
Eliot's  in  May,  1 870,  but  it  was  not  until  July, 
1870,  that  signatures  were  regularly  used.  In- 

[  249  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

asmuch  as  the  names  of  the  more  prominent 
contributors  engaged  were  printed  in  the  initial 
advertising  pages,  it  was  not  difficult  to  guess 
the  authorship  of  most  of  the  articles.  But  even 
without  this,  discerning  readers  were  at  once 
aware  of  the  high  quality  of  the  new  periodical. 
Wilkie  Collins  wrote  from  London: — 

1 1  Harley  Place,  Marylebone  Road, 

LONDON,  December  3oth,  1857. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  ...  Pray  don't  trouble 
yourself  to  answer  this  letter,  until  my  contri 
bution  to  the  magazine  reaches  you — when  I 
shall  be  glad  to  hear  of  its  safe  arrival.  I  shall  look 
out  with  great  interest  for  the  story  to  which  you 
refer  in  the  third  number.  Excepting  the  diffi 
culties  of  finding  good  tellers  of  tales  (sorely 
felt  here,  let  me  say,  as  well  as  in  America),  with 
such  men  as  Longfellow  and  Emerson  to  head 
your  list  of  contributors,  I  cannot  think  that 
you  need  fear  the  rivalry  of  any  magazine  in  any 
region  of  the  civilized  world. 

Believe  me  to  remain 

Very  cordially  yours, 

WILKIE  COLLINS. 
F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

Charles  Reade,  several  of  whose  vigorous 
and  pugnacious  epistles  were  preserved  by  Un 
derwood,  wrote  in  the  autumn  of  1858  :  — 

6  Bolton  Row,  MAYFAIR,  Oct.  10. 

DEAR  SIR, — I  beg  to  acknowledge  yours  of 
date  Sept.  28,  and  as  requested  answer  by  re 
turn  mail.  I  will  never  under  any  circumstances 
submit  a  MS.  of  mine  to  the  chance  of  any 
other  writer  comprehending  it  and  seeing  its 
merit.  If  therefore  that  is  an  absolute  condi 
tion,  you  will  never  see  a  line  of  mine  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  while  I  live.  The  stories  you 
do  publish  in  the  Monthly  could  never  have 
been  selected  by  any  judge  competent  to  sit  in 
judgment  on  me.  We  had  better  wait  a  little. 
You  will  find  that  every  word  of  fiction  I  pro 
duce  will  succeed  more  or  less ;  this  in  a  world 
crammed  with  feeble  scribblers  is  a  sufficient 
basis  for  treaty.  As  to  the  exact  manner  of  suc 
cess  no  man  can  pronounce  on  it  beforehand. 

"White  Lies"  which  you  seem  to  think 
has  failed  has  on  the  contrary  been  a  greater 
success  than  "  It  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend." 
At  all  events  it  is  so  represented  to  me  by  the 
Publishers  and  this  not  in  complimentary 

[351  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

phrases  only,  of  which  you  and  I  know  the 
value,  but  in  figures  that  represent  cash. 

Yet,  as  you  are  aware,  it  had  to  resist  a  panic. 
A  truce  to  egotism,  and  let  me  congratulate 
you  on  the  circulation  and  merit  of  your 
monthly.  It  is  a  wonderful  product  at  the  price. 
Good  paper,  excellent  type,  and  the  letters  dis 
engaged  so  that  one  can  read  it. 

Then  as  for  the  matter,  the  stories  are  no 
worse  than  "  Blackwood's  "  and  "Erasers'," 
etc.,  etc.,  and  some  of  the  other  matter  is  in 
finitely  beyond  our  monthly  and  trimestral 
scribblers,  being  genuine  in  thought  and  Eng 
lish  in  expression.  Whereas  what  passes  for 
criticism  here  is  too  often  a  mere  mixture  of 
Cuck-oo  and  hee-haw.  A  set  of  conventional 
phrases  turned  not  in  English  but  in  Norman 
French  and  the  jargon  of  the  schools. 

After  five  and  twenty  years  of  these  rotten 
old  cabbage  stalks  without  a  spark  of  thought, 
novelty  or  life  among  them,  I  turn  my  nose  to 
such  papers  as  your  "  Autocrat  of  the  Break 
fast  Table,"  etc.  with  a  sense  of  relief  and 
freshness.  .  .  .  Success  attend  you,  and  when  you 
are  ripe  for  Tours  truly  CHARLES  READE 

let  me  know. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

Meanwhile  Underwood  was  unweariedly 
active,  not  only  at  his  desk  but  in  the  pleasures 
of  good  fellowship  with  other  musical,  artistic, 
and  literary  spirits.  His  scrap-book  contains 
many  a  charming  whimsical  letter  from  F.  J. 
Child,  who  usually  addressed  him  as  "  Sotto- 
bosco,"  and  was  wont  to  drop  into  French  or 
Italian  for  a  convenient  word.  Even  the  self- 
contained  Emerson  writes  about  the  luck 
which  goes  to  a  dinner  in  anything  but  a 
transcendental  vein :  — 

CONCORD,  21  Nov.  [1857]. 
DEAR  SIR, —  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  come  to 
town  to-day,  and  join  your  strong  party  at 
dinner.  I  shall  be  in  town  on  Tuesday,  prob 
ably,  and  I  will  not  fail  to  come  to  your  Coun 
ting  Room  and  I  will  think  in  the  meantime 
what  I  can  do.  From  what  you  say  of  the 
club  dinner,  I  have  no  dream  of  any  such  self- 
denying  ordinance  as  you  intimate.  There  is 
always  a  good  deal  of  luck  goes  to  a  dinner, 
and  if  ours  was  a  heavy  one,  as  you  say  it  was, 
there  is  the  more  reason  to  believe  the  luck  will 
turn  and  be  with  us  next  time.  But  I  was  in 
the  dark  about  it,  and  only  regretted  that  I 

[253] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

could  not  stay  longer  to  hear  the  stones  out. 
I  can  send  you  nothing  for  the  Atlantic  sooner 
than  the  end  of  the  month,  but  of  this  I  will 
speak  when  I  see  you. 

Respectfully, 

R.  W.  EMERSON. 
Mr.  UNDERWOOD. 

Emerson's  next  letter  alludes  to  the  famous 
dinner  at  Porter's  Tavern,  described  by  Mr. 
Gilman  in  the  Atlantic  for  November,  1907. 

CONCORD,  Friday  Evening, 

1 8  Dec.  [1857]. 

DEAR  SIR,  — I  have  been  out  of  town  for  a 
few  days  and  find  your  messages  only  now 
on  my  return  to-night.  I  am  sorry  you  should 
have  deferred  the  good  meeting  on  my  account, 
for  though  I  cannot  help  a  feast,  I  hate  to  hinder 
one.  But  if  Mr.  Lowell  and  you  have  chosen 
that  I  shall  come,  I  will  not  stay  away  on  Mon 
day  at  5.  You  say  at  Porters  which  I  suppose  to 
be  Porters  at  Cambridge.  If  not  send  me  word. 
You  are  very  kind  to  offer  me  a  bed ;  but  I  shall 
have  to  go  to  my  old  haunts.  So  with  thanks, 
Yours, 

R.  W.  EMERSON. 

Mr.  UNDERWOOD. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

After  the  appearance  of  the  January  num 
ber  (1858)  Whittier  writes : — 

DEAR  FD, —  A  lady  friend  of  mine,  Mrs. 
Randolph  of  Philada.  sends  me  the  enclosed 
to  hand  over  to  thee  if  I  think  best. 

I  believe  there  is  something  due  me — but 
I  would  not  mention  it  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that,  in  common  with  most  others,  I  am  at  this 
time  sadly  "  out  of  pocket." 

Dr.  Holmes'  "  Autocrat "  is  thrice  excellent 
and  the  little  poem  at  its  close  is  booked  for 
immortality.1 

Very  truly  thy  friend, 

J.  G.  W. 

Give  us  more  papers  like  "  N.  E.  Minis 


ters." 


Of  the   February  number  Judge  Hoar  of 
Concord  writes :  — 

Jan.  27,  1858. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — I  am  exceedingly  flattered 

and  obliged  by  your  invitation  to  dine  with  the 

Magazine  Club,  and  (as  the  French  have  it) 

inexpressibly  desolated  by  my  inability  to  ac- 

1  "  The  Old  Man  Dreams."    January,  1858. 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

cept  it.  I  am  attending  a  hearing  before  a  Rail 
road  Committee  at  the  State  House  which  is 
to  go  on  at  3  P.  M.  and  would  leave  no  time 
for  the  dinner. 

My  best  wishes  attend  the  Magazine,  its 
editors  and  contributors.  May  it  never  blow 
up !  I  think  the  February  number  surpassed 
any  promises  that  were  made  for  it — and  that 
the  Doctor's  exquisite  little  "Nautilus"  is  in 
rather  a  finer  strain  than  anything  he  has  given 
us  before. 

Very  truly  yours, 

E.  R.  HOAR. 
F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 

Meanwhile  Charles  Eliot  Norton  was  writ 
ing  from  Newport,  December  25,  1857:  "I 
am  very  glad  to  hear  of  the  success  of  the  At 
lantic.  The  third  number  certainly  shows  no 
falling  off.  ...  If  you  care  for  this  that  fol 
lows  from  Ruskin  you  are  welcome  to  have  it 
published.  .  .  .  Mr.  Ruskin  says:  CI  was 
delighted  with  the  magazine  and  all  that  was 
in  it.  What  a  glorious  thing  of  Lowell's  that 
is,  —  but  it  is  too  bad  to  quiz  Pallas.  I  can 
stand  it  about  anybody  but  her.' ' 

[  256  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

A  little  later  Mr.  Norton,  with  a  kindness 
which  has  not  ceased  during  half  a  century,  was 
commending  a  new  English  story  writer  to 
the  Atlantic's  attention,  —  no  less  a  personage 
than  "Mr.  George  Eliot  "  ! 

NEWPORT,  Monday  [1858]. 

DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD,  .  .  .  "Adam 
Bede  "  seems  to  me  the  best  novel  in  points 
of  artistic  development  of  the  story  and  clear 
drawing  of  character  that  we  have  had  for  a 
long  time.  It  does  not  show  so  much  imagina 
tion  as  Miss  Bronte's  books,  —  nor  such  fine 
feminine  insight  and  tenderness  of  feeling  as 
Mrs.  Gaskell's. 

But  if  you  could  get  Mr.  George  Eliot  to  write 
a  story  for  the  Atlantic  I  think  it  would  be  sure 
to  answer  well.  It  would  require  a  handsome  of 
fer  to  tempt  him,  —  for  his  book  is  universally 
popular  in  England,  and  he  can  make  his  own 
terms  with  the  publishers.  .  .  . 
Ever  truly  yours, 

CHARLES  E.  NORTON. 

That  there  were  some  thorns  in  the  editorial 
cushions,  however,  is  plainly  indicated  in  some 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

of  Lowell's  Letters,  and  Underwood  had  his 
share  of  them.  Would-be  contributors  then,  as 
now,  studied  the  pages  of  the  magazine  and 
could  not  understand  why  their  own  articles 
were  not  better  than  those  selected  by  the  edi 
tors.  Witness  this  sorrowful  note  from  the  au 
thor  of  "  Bitter  Sweet "  and  "  Kathrina  " :  — 

"Republican"  Office, 
SPRINGFIELD,  Dec.  24,  1857. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  too  old  and  too  busy  to 
make  myself  miserable  over  what  in  other  cir 
cumstances  would  be  a  great  disappointment  to 
me.  It  is  simply  mortification,  but  I  bow  to  the 
editorial  right.  The  reason  given  for  not  pub 
lishing  the  "Talk  with  my  Minister"  I  under 
stand.  The  reason  for  declining  the  sketch,  I  find 
it  hard  to  understand  with  the  pages  of  the  At 
lantic  before  me.  So  of  "My  Children."  You  and 
the  enterprise  with  which  you  are  connected 
have  my  best  wishes,  and  you  will  be  relieved  to 
know  that  I  shall  read  the  Monthly  and  trouble 
you  no  more.  With  regards  to  Mr.  Phillips, 
Very  truly  yours, 

J.  G.  HOLLAND. 

F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

It  is  pleasant  to  see  that  Underwood  pasted 
into  his  scrap-book  another  letter  from  Dr.  Hol 
land,  twenty  years  later,  and  of  a  more  agreeable 
kind:  — 

Editorial  Rooms  of*'  Scribner's  Monthly," 

743  Broadway, 
NEW  YORK,  October  10,  1878. 

DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD,  —  Do  you  remem 
ber  me?  I  used  to  write  for  you  —  a  little.  Now, 
by  Dr.  Holmes's  suggestion,  I  am  going  to  ask 
you  to  "return  the  compliment." 

We  are  to  have  an  illustrated  biography  of 
the  brilliant  doctor,  and  you  are  the  man  chosen 
to  write  it.  Will  you  do  it?  About  8,000  words. 
Yours  very  truly, 

J.  G.  HOLLAND. 

One  contributor,  at  least,  smarted  under  Low 
ell's  exercise  of  the  editorial  functions.  This  was 
Parke  Godwin,  an  able  and  opinionated  man, 
who  had  written  for  the  first  number  an  article 
on  "  The  Financial  Flurry," — a  subject  not  un 
timely,  by  the  way,  for  November,  1907.  He 
followed  it  with  political  articles  in  January  and 
February,  1858,  but  to  his  eight  pages  on  "  Mr. 
Buchanan's  Administration  "in  the  April  num- 

C 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

her,  Lowell,  apparently  without  consulting  Mr. 
Godwin,  added  six  pages  of  his  own,  expressing 
"  contempt "  and  "  humiliation  "  at  the  admin 
istration.  The  editor's  portion  of  the  article  was 
indeed  separated  from  the  contributor's  by  a 
blank  line,  and  the  article  was  of  course  un 
signed.  But  Godwin  was  very  angry,  as  his  let 
ter  to  poor  Underwood,  who  had  apparently 
attempted  an  explanation,  will  show :  — 

NEW  YORK,  March  26,  '58. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD,  —  The  pur 
port  of  your  note,  if  I  understand  it,  is,  that 
"your  publishers"  do  not  like  my  articles, 
because  a  certain  alleged  want  of  "fervor"  dis 
appoints  the  newsvenders.  As  this  is  the  first 
expression  of  opinion  that  I  have  had  from  any 
body,  connected  with  the  magazine,  I  am  glad 
to  be  enlightened. 

The  deficiency  imputed  to  them,  or  any  other 
deficiency,  would  have  been  a  good  reason  for 
suppressing  them,  altogether:  but  it  is  not  a 
good  reason  for  mutilating  them ;  nor  does  it 
justify  any  man  in  appending  to  them,  without 
my  knowledge  or  consent,  several  pages  of  his 
own  remarks. 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

These  articles  were  written  after  a  careful  sur 
vey  of  the  whole  field  of  discussion,  —  from  a 
pretty  good  knowledge  of  the  state  of  public 
opinion :  and  in  view  of  the  yet  nascent  ten 
dencies  of  parties.  They  were  addressed  to  the 
reason  and  good  sense  of  the  American  people 
rather  than  to  the  feelings  and  prejudices  of  fac 
tions.  I  constructed  them  also  —  particularly  in 
the  omissions  —  with  reference  to  the  near  and 
probable  future  of  Parties,  so  that  the  Cause  of 
the  Right  would  not  be  injured  by  any  needless 
virulence,  —  and  yet  the  truth  be  quite  openly 
and  roundly  asserted.  I  did  not  hope  to  satisfy 
the  "fervid"  Abolition  sentiment  of  New  Eng 
land:  nor  to  write  sensation  articles  for  the 
newsvenders :  but  I  did  hope  to  make  the  Mag 
azine  gradually  a  power  and  an  authority  in  the 
best  minds  of  the  country.  It  seems  that  I  have 
made  a  mistake :  and  that  my  considerate  sen 
tences  are  unsuited  to  the  "  fervid  "  atmosphere 
of  Boston. 

Now,  this  is  a  mistake  that  I  cannot,  because 
I  will  not  correct.  I  have  never  yet  written  for 
mere  factions  or  localities.  I  have  studied  the 
politics  of  this  country  many  years,  with  an  aver 
age  degree  of  intelligence,  I  hope :  with  the  sin- 
[261  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

cerity  of  a  patriot,  I  know :  and  also  in  the  large 
and  thoughtful  spirit  of  philosophy.  I  am  there 
fore  as  a  writer,  no  "  thunderer  "  —  as  the  gentle 
man  who  attempts  to  supply  my  deficiencies  is, 
—  perhaps,  —  and  consequently,  as  thunder  is 
needed,  I  willingly  resign  my  place  to  him.  I 
shall  hereafter  look  with  much  interest  towards 
the  demonstrations  of  this  new  Love,  —  hoping 
that  you  too  may  be  satisfied ! 

I  learn  from  your  note  that  Mr.  Lowell  was 
the  person  who  took  upon  himself  to  curtail  my 
article,  and  then  to  substitute  his  own  matter. 
For  Mr.  Lowell's  general  poetic  and  literary 
abilities  I  have  a  high  respect:  but  I  have  never 
heard  of  him  as  a  peculiarly  competent  political 
thinker  or  writer:  and,  however  that  may  be,  I 
must  say  frankly  that  I  should  prefer  to  put 
my  writings  before  the  public  without  his  "im 
provements." 

Under  these  circumstances  I  do  not  see  how 
you  can  expect  from  me  the  promised  article  on 
the  "  Decadence  of  Democracy  ";  apart  of  what 
I  reserved  to  say  in  that  Mr.  Lowell  has  anti 
cipated,  and  the  rest,  I  imagine,  would  be  ex 
posed  to  the  same  liabilities  the  former  articles 
have  been.  The  conditions  are  not  accordant 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

with  my  sense  of  self-respect.  At  the  same  time, 
as  I  may  not  have  contributed  my  full  number 
of  pages  according  to  our  original  agreement,  I 
will  endeavor  to  satisfy  the  terms  of  the  contract 
in  some  other  line. 

The  sketch  entitled  "Attilee"  you  do  not 
refer  to,  —  nor  my  offer  of  the  history,  —  and  I 
beg  leave  therefore  to  withdraw  both  from  your 
consideration. 

You  speak  of cc  conflicting  interests  and  opin 
ions," —  but  let  me  say  that  I  have  had  no  con 
flict  with  anybody.  I  was  solicited  to  write,  and 
did  so  (often  in  too  great  hurry  under  your  ur 
gency)  :  and  since  what  I  have  written  does  not 
suit  you,  you  have  a  perfect  right  to  say  so.  I 
should  have  liked  it  better  if  you  had  been  more 
direct  and  frank  in  your  method  of  communi 
cating  the  fact;  but  I  certainly  acquit  you  per 
sonally  of  any  unkindness  or  unfriendliness  in 
the  premises.  My  sentiments  as  to  Mr.  Low 
ell's  proceedings  are  another  affair. 

Fred  Cozzens  and  I  had  arranged  to  go  and 
eat  a  dinner  with  you  on  Saturday :  but  as  we 
are  afraid  that  we  should  be  found  very  cold  and 
dull  clods  amid  the  fervid  and  glowing  wits  who 
surround  Maga,  our  prudence  has  got  the  bet- 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

ter  of  our  valour :  we  shall  instead  warm  up  our 
heavy  clay  with  some  less  Olympian  brewages. 
Yours  truly, 

PARKE  GODWIN. 

Other  editorial  embarrassments  were  of  a 
slighter  character.  When  Underwood  asked 
T.  B.  Aldrich  to  alter  his  "  Blue  Bell "  rhymes, 
at  Lowell's  request,  the  younger  poet  refused,1 
and  withdrew  the  verses.  The  scrap-book  re 
veals  the  fact  that  it  was  Lowell  himself  who 
had  desired  the  alteration,  and  who  was  now 
wondering  what  had  become  of  the  poem.  But 
the  Atlantic  never  saw  it  again ;  although  Al 
drich  ultimately  adopted  the  editorial  sugges 
tion. 

[1858.] 

MY  DEAR  UNDERWOOD,  —  You  will  remem 
ber  that  I  asked  you  to  send  the  "  Blue  Bells  " 
to  Mr.  Aldrich  for  an  alteration  in  one  of  the 
stanzas.  When  that  is  made  it  shall  go  in.  I 
think  you  have  it. 

I  am  going  to  make  a  gaol-delivery  of  verse 
in  the  next  number. 

Yrs.  ever, 

J.  R.  L. 

1  Aldrich' s  note  is  printed  on  p.  152. 

[264] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

One  is  tempted  to  quote  all  of  Aldrich's  in 
imitable  notes  to  Underwood,  as  well  as  letters 
from  Sainte-Beuve  and  other  foreign  writers, 
and  many  a  friendly  line  from  Holmes  and 
Whittier.  How  characteristic  of  the  Autocrat  is 
the  blithe  "  let  her  slide  "  of  the  following  epistle, 
referring  to  the  lines  "The  Living  Temple" 
(May,  1858). 

MY  DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD, —  If  it  is  pos 
sible  to  change  a  word  in  my  last  poem  I  can 
get  rid  of  a  repetition  I  have  just  noticed.  If  it 
is  too  late,  let  her  slide. 

Instead  of 

"  But  warmed  by  that  mysterious  flame  " 

Read 

' '  But  warmed  by  that  unchanging  flame. ' ' 

Yours,  O.  W.  H. 

Monday  evening. 

But  the  end  of  Underwood's  editorial  work 
upon  the  magazine  was  at  hand.  Mr.  Phillips's 
death  in  the  summer  of  1859,  following  the 
death  of  Mr.  Sampson,  led  to  the  suspension 
and  dissolution  of  the  firm.  A  letter  from  a 
worried  New  York  poet  paints  the  situation :  — 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

Debenture  Room,  Custom  House, 

NEW  YORK,  Sept.  7,  '59. 

DEAR  SIR, —  I  wrote  Messrs.  Phillips  and 
Sampson  a  business  note  two  or  three  weeks 
ago,  asking  them  to  send  me  a  check  for  a  poem 
of  mine  in  the  August  number  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly.  No  check  has  reached  me;  no  no 
tice  has  been  taken  of  the  note.  As  both  mem 
bers  of  the  firm  have  "gone  dead,"  I  suppose 
it  useless  to  write  them  beyond  the  Styx,  so  I 
trouble  you.  The  bouse  lives,  I  suppose,  if  the 
men  die.  I  want  the  money  for  the  poem,  what 
ever  it  may  be,  or  I  want  to  know  that  I  am  not 
to  have  it,  so  that  I  may  forget  all  about  it,  and 
turn  to 

"  Fresh  fields  and  pastures  new." 
Will  you  not  see  to  the  affair  and  oblige  me? 
Have  a  check,  or  the  money  sent  me  (my  direc 
tion  is  over  leaf)  or  tell  me  for  what  sum  to  draw 
on  Phillips  and  Sampson.  At  any  rate  answer 
this  note,  that  I  may  know  that  it  reaches  you. 
Perhaps  I  had  better  tell  you  that  the  poem  was 
printed  under  the  head  of  "The  End  of  All." 
Respectfully,  etc., 

R.  H.  STODDARD. 

F.  H.  UNDERWOOD,  Esq. 
Boston. 

[  266  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

A  kindly  note  from  George  William  Curtis, 
two  weeks  later,  is  like  the  fall  of  the  curtain :  — 

NEW  YORK,  20  Sep.,  1859. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — Will  you  send  me  all  the 
unused  MSS.  of  Mr.  Cranch's  that  you  have, 
and  can  you  tell  me  the  probable  destiny  of  the 
plates  of  "Huggermugger  "  and  "Kobbotozo  "  ? 
Was  the  contract  for  a  limited  term, —  I  have 
forgotten. 

The  news  of  the  suspension  of  your  house  fell 
heavily  upon  all  of  us  who  were  interested  in 
the  publishing  of  good  books  and  of  the  Atlan 
tic.  My  constant  employments  have  engaged 
me  elsewhere,  —  but  could  not  lead  me  beyond 
the  heartiest  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the 
magazine  and  admiration  of  its  excellence. 

What  will  you  do  ?  Can  I  keep  you  here  in 
New  York? 

Very  truly  yours, 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 

The  magazine  itself  was  transferred  to  the 
house  of  Ticknor  and  Fields,  in  a  fashion  amus 
ingly  described  in  the  Contributors'  Club  in  No 
vember,  1907.  Both  Lowell  and  Underwood 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

lingered  in  office  for  a  while,  the  former  until 
May,  1 86 1.  J.  L.  Motley,  writing  to  Under 
wood  from  London  on  November  n,  1860, 
in  praise  of  the  Atlantic,  says, "  I  am  writing  this 
under  the  impression  that  you  are  still  editor  of 
the  magazine."  But  the  happiest  part  of  Un 
derwood's  life  was  over.  He  now  moved  from 
Cambridge  to  South  Boston.  For  many  years 
he  served  as  Clerk  of  the  Superior  Court,  de 
voting  his  spare  hours  to  music  and  literature. 
His  friends  remained  faithful,  and  the  following 
polyglot  note  from  Lowell,  inviting  him  to  an 
evening  of  whist  with  John  Bartlett  and  John 
Holmes,  is  but  one  of  the  invitations  which 
testify  to  the  intimacy  of  such  companionship. 

ELMWOOD,  Thursday. 

MY  DEAR  UNDERWOOD,  —  Come  early  and 
come  often.  J'ai  tout  arrange:  les  deux  Jeans 
y  seront  de  bonne  heure,  et  nous  en  ferons  une 
vraie  nuit  de  vacances.  Votre  billet,  tout  cordial 
qu'il  etait,  et  plein  de  bonte  a  mon  regard,  m'a 
vraiment  rechauffe  lecoeur.  Vous  trouverez  un 
lit  chez  nous,  et  retournerez  a  la  Cour  Supe- 
rieure  de  bon  matin,  y  portant  un  mal  de  tete 
des  meilleurs,  si  le  vieux  Bourbon  et  les  heures 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

tardes  n'ont  pas  perdu  de  force.  Venite,  dunque, 
a  che  ora  vi  piacera,  e  sarete  il  benvenuto ! 
Affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  L. 

In  1871  and  1872  Underwood  issued  Hand 
books  of  British  and  American  authors,  and  the 
correspondence  involved  in  these  tasks,  as  well 
as  in  his  biographies  of  Longfellow,  Whittier, 
and  Lowell,  is  well  represented  in  his  scrap- 
book.  There  are  long  letters,  for  example,  from 
Parkman  and  Motley,  setting  forth  their  aims 
in  the  great  historical  undertakings  to  which 
their  lives  were  so  largely  devoted. 

One  passage  from  a  letter  of  Parkman  at 
tempts  to  explain  why  Underwood  had  not 
enjoyed  a  greater  prestige.  He  was  "neither 
a  Harvard  man  nor  a  humbug  " ! 

50  Chestnut  St.,  Aprili^,  1875. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD, —  ...  I  wish 
that  your  connection  with  the  Atlantic  could 
have  been  continued  long  enough  to  give  your 
literary  powers  and  accomplishments  a  fair 
chance  of  just  recognition.  It  is  for  the  interest 
of  us  all  that  men  like  you  should  be  rated 

[  269  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

for  what  they  are  worth.  Harvard  College  and 
its  social  allies  answer  a  very  good  purpose  in 
defending  us  —  to  some  extent  —  against  the 
intellectual  clap-trap  and  charlatanry  which 
prosper  so  well  throughout  the  country ;  but 
those  who  are  neither  Harvard  men  nor  hum 
bugs  may  be  said  to  be  the  victims  of  their  own 
merit,  having  neither  the  prestige  of  the  one  nor 
the  arts  of  the  other.  .  .  . 

With  cordial  regards, 

Very  truly  yours, 

F.  PARKMAN. 

Occasionally  a  former  contributor  would 
write  him  a  cordial  note.  One  of  these  letters, 
from  Rose  Terry,  inclosed  a  charming  girlish 
photograph,  —  the  only  photograph  preserved 
in  the  scrap-book. 

COLLINSVILLE,  Nov.   28th,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  UNDERWOOD, — Your  letter 
of  October  24th  only  reached  me  yesterday, 
and  I  am  afraid  you  have  thought  me  very 
uncivil. 

I  am  very  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of 
doing  even  so  little  a  thing  for  you,  to  whom 
I  owe  so  much  kindness  and  consideration 
[  270  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

during  our  mutual  engagements  with  the  old 
Atlantic,  which  after  all  seems  to  me  far  better 
than  the  new!  I  congratulate  you  on  having 
"drifted"  out  of  literature,  it  is  "weariness 
to  the  flesh"  and  small  satisfaction  to  the 
spirit.  The  photograph  I  send  you  is  one  from 
a  picture  (an  ambrotype)  taken  about  the  time 
when  I  first  wrote  for  the  Atlantic  ;  I  send  it 
because  it  is  the  prettiest  one  I  ever  had ;  a 
feminine  reason,  but  then  I  never  was  strong- 
minded.  A  picture  now  would  be  anything 
but  pleasant,  illness  and  anxiety  for  years  are 
not  beautifiers  !  I  hope  at  least  the  face  may 
express  to  you  all  the  good  wishes  I  have  for 
you  and  yours  ;  and  be  to  you  always  the  face 
of  a  friend  even  when  its  original  has  "gone 
over  to  the  majority." 

Yours  very  cordially, 

ROSE  TERRY. 

Of  the  letters  of  congratulation  received  upon 
Underwood's  appointment  as  United  States 
Consul  at  Glasgow,  in  1885,  Whittier's  is 
worth  printing,  as  showing  that  he,  like  Mot 
ley,  was  under  the  impression  that  Underwood 
had  been  the  Atlantic's  first  editor:  — 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

HOLDERNESS,    N.   H., 

7th  Mo.  27,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  UNDERWOOD,  —  I  have  been 
away  for  some  time  trying  to  gain  some  strength 
from  the  hills,  and  have  just  seen  a  paragraph 
in  the  papers  by  which  I  am  glad  to  learn  of 
thy  appointment  as  U.  S.  Consul  at  Glasgow. 
I  am  heartily  rejoiced  at  it,  and  hasten  to  con 
gratulate  thee.  President  Cleveland  has  done 
a  handsome  thing  in  thus  recognizing  one  of 
the  "  literary  fellows  "  who  had  the  honor  of 
the  first  editorship  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

I  have  been  in  Boston  only  once  for  the  last 
year,  and  then  only  for  a  day  or  two.  I  wish 
I  could  see  thee  before  thy  departure  for  Glas 
gow,  but  that  is  not  possible  in  my  state  of 
health.  I  must  not  leave  here  during  this  hot 
weather.  I  am  glad  our  country  and  its  litera 
ture  is  to  be  so  well  represented  in  the  land 
of  Burns  and  Scott. 

God  bless  thee  and  prosper  thee  ! 
Thy  old  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

These  later  notes  from  Whittier  refer  to  the 
biography  upon  which  Underwood  was  en- 
[  272  ] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

gaged.  They  are  vigorous,  and  very  charac 
teristic. 

AMESBURY,  4  Mo.  14,  1883. 

DEAR  FD.,  — .  .  .  Don't  make  too  big  a 
book,  and  don't  try  to  account  for  everything 
I  have  written  or  not  written,  or  done,  or  not 
done.  A  mere  mention  of  the  fact  that  I  have 
written  in  my  first  attempts  a  great  [deal]  of 
prose  and  rhyme  which  I  would  not  now  in 
sult  the  reader  by  reproducing,  is  enough. 
And  do  not  forget  that  I  have  lived  a  hard 
life  outside  of  my  verse  making.  I  am  a  man 
and  not  a  mere  verse  maker.  Thine  truly, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

AMESBURY,  6  Mo.  14   [1883]. 
DEAR  F.  H.  UNDERWOOD, — .  .  .  I  see  one 
of  the  chapters  headed  "  Beginnings  of  Fame." 
I  don't  think  at  the  time  mentioned  the  word 
Fame  is  applicable.   It  is  safe  to  say  that  there 
are  now  in  the  United  States  ten  thousand  boys 
and  girls  who  can  write  better  verses  than  mine 
at  their  age.    The  single  fact  is  that  my  first 
scribblings  are  very  poor  and  commonplace. 
Thine  truly, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

C  273  ] 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

ASQUAM,   HOLDERNESS,   N.    H., 

7  Mo.  21,  1883. 

DEAR  FRIEND,  —  I  am  grateful  for  thy  gen 
erous  estimate  of  my  writings  in  "  Character 
istics/'  but  I  fear  the  critics  will  not  agree  with 
thee.  Why  not  anticipate  them,  and  own  up 
to  faults  and  limitations  which  everybody  sees, 
and  none  more  clearly  than  myself.  Touch 
upon  my  false  rhymes  and  Yankeeisms  :  con 
fess  that  I  sometimes  "  crack  the  voice  of  mel 
ody  and  break  the  legs  of  time."  Pitch  into 
"Mogg  Megone."  That  "big  Injun"  strut 
ting  round  in  Walter  Scott's  plaid,  has  no 
friends  and  deserves  none.  Own  that  I  some 
times  choose  unpoetical  themes.  Endorse  Low 
ell's  "  Fable  for  Critics  "  that  I  mistake  oc 
casionally  simple  excitement  for  inspiration.  In 
this  way  we  can  take  the  wind  out  of  the  sails 
of  ill-natured  cavillers.  I  am  not  one  of  the 
master  singers  and  don't  pose  as  one.  By  the 
grace  of  God  I  am  only  what  I  am,  and  don't 
wish  to  pass  for  more. 

I  return  the  sheets,  with  this  note.  Think 
of  my  suggestions  and  act  upon  them  if  it 
seems  best  to  thee.  Always  thy  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

[274] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

AMESBURY,  I  Mo.  20,  1884. 
MY  DEAR  UNDERWOOD,  —  I  am  very  sorry 
to  find  thee  lay  so  much  stress  on  dragging  to 
light  all  the  foolish  things  written  by  me,  and 
which  I  hate  the  thought  of.  For  mercy's  sake 
let  the  dead  rest,  (i)  in  regard  to  "  Mogg 
Megone  "  (a  poem  I  wish  was  in  the  Red  Sea), 
—  I  know  Benjamin  had  it,  I  thought  in  New 
York.  It  seems  he  was  Ed.  of  the  "  N.  E. 
Magazine  "  &  published  it  there.  (2)  Abo 
lition  poem  by  Isaac  Knapp.  I  know  nothing 
of  it.  All  my  anti-slavery  poems  are  in  my 
collected  works.  I  see  no  use  in  setting  all 
the  literary  ghouls  to  digging  for  something  I 
have  written  in  my  first  attempts  at  rhyme.  I 
detest  the  whole  of  it.  ... 

Ever  and  truly  thy  friend, 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

Underwood's  experiences  in  Great  Britain, 
both  at  Glasgow  and  later  at  Edinburgh,  — 
where  he  was  Consul  during  Cleveland's  second 
administration,  —  were  touched  upon  in  Mr. 
Trowbridge's  article.  Between  the  two  con 
sulships  he  wrote  a  novel,  cc  Quabbin,"  in 
which  he  described  from  that  benign  distance 


PARK-STREET  PAPERS 

his  native  town.  He  received  many  social 
honors  during  his  residence  abroad,  and  the 
degree  of  LL.D.  was  conferred  upon  him  by 
the  University  of  Glasgow.  He  made  friends, 
as  always  and  everywhere,  and  the  most  bril 
liant  of  living  English  writers  is  represented 
in  the  scrap-book  by  some  letters  inquiring 
into  the  value  of  certain  American  securities, 
which  Underwood  had  recommended  him  to 
purchase.  To  name  these  securities  now  might 
invoke  the  Comic  Spirit. 

Underwood  never  came  home  to  that  world 
which  had  more  or  less  grown  away  from  him. 
He  died  at  Edinburgh  in  1894.  Versatile  in 
gifts  and  genial  in  spirit,  he  was  associated,  as 
we  have  seen,  with  some  of  the  best  men  of 
his  day,  but  he  himself  never  quite  "arrived." 
There  were  Celts  of  old  time  who  "always  went 
forth  to  the  fight,  but  they  always  fell."  One 
likes  them  none  the  worse  for  that.  During  the 
Civil  War,  Underwood's  fertile  brain  devised 
a  curious  project,  which  had  no  other  result, 
apparently,  than  the  creation  of  one  more  re 
markable  autograph  for  his  scrap-book.  He 
wished  to  start  a  saw-mill  in  Florida.  Every 
magazine  editor,  as  is  well  known,  has  his  mo- 

[276] 


THE  EDITOR  WHO  WAS  NEVER  EDITOR 

ments  of  keen  desire  to  be  running  a  saw-mill 
somewhere.  But  Underwood  picked  out  an 
actual  spot,  then  under  occupation  by  Federal 
troops,  and  addressed  a  respectful  letter  to 
President  Lincoln,  setting  forth  the  benefits 
to  the  nation  which  would  accrue  from  the  said 
saw-mill  through  the  promotion  of  emigration 
to  Florida.  Here  is  the  very  document,  thrown 
carelessly  into  the  scrap-book,  endorsed  by 
leading  citizens  of  Boston,  with  Ex-Governor 
Boutwell  at  the  head,  by  Charles  Sumner  and 
Henry  Wilson,  Senators  from  Massachusetts, 
by  Major- General  Gillmore,  then  at  Hilton 
Head,  and  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States :  — 

I  fully  approve,  subject  to  the  discretion 
and  control  of  the  Commanding  General. 
March  26,  1864. 

A.  LINCOLN. 

A   saw-mill    in   Florida!    What  a  castle  in 
Spain,  for  this  editor  who  was  never  the  Editor! 


($ be 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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